Kyrsten Sinema A Dick To The End

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, the Kyrsten Sinema party senator from Arizona, gave an “exit interview” to Semafor so she could explain that her single term in the Senate was in fact a nearly complete success, and if anyone thinks otherwise, that’s just like their opinion man.

She said that after this fall’s election, when Republicans won control of the Senate, she heard from a Democratic senator — whom she didn’t name, of course — who “reached out to me after the election and apologized — and said I was right.” It was the classic lotsa people agree with me in the comments but are too scared to say so dodge, and who knows, maybe it really happened. She added that “I was surprised about that one. I was very surprised. And I appreciate it.”

Then everyone applauded.

What Sinema was right about, according to Sinema, was her 2022 vote against an exception to the filibuster to preserve voting rights. That decision put an end to the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Enhancement Act, which would have protected Americans from Republican states’ ever-increasing efforts at voter suppression. So much for abolishing gerrymandering, reducing barriers to voter registration and voter list maintenance, and setting uniform rules for federal elections. But the filibuster was preserved, and Semafor somewhat naively proclaims that now that Democrats are in the minority, “her former party will now benefit from her and Sen. Joe Manchin’s refusal to vote to weaken the filibuster.”

At least until there’s something Republicans really wanna do and they eliminate it without a second thought about traditions, comity, bipartisanship, or any of the stuff that Sinema and Manchin insisted the filibuster magically promotes.

Sinema told Semafor that she considers her vote to (temporarily) preserve the filibuster was the “most important vote I’ve ever taken in my life.” Of course she does.

Sinema also had a few words for people who criticized her — as did Yr Wonkette! — for her final vote in the Senate a bit over a week back. As you may recall, she and Manchin got the Obstruction Gang back together for one last caper, refusing to confirm a second term for National Labor Relations Board Chair Lauren McFerran.

That vote was especially jarring because Sinema hadn’t bothered even showing up for most votes in the Senate lately. Had Sinema simply stayed home as usual, the confirmation vote would have been tied at 49-49, since one Republican was out that day, and Kamala Harris was on hand to break the tie to confirm McFerran, ensuring a two-year Democratic majority on the body that plays a key role in enforcing labor law. But now, Donald Trump will be able to tip the balance to Republicans. Bummer, all you workers hoping for a fair shake!

Mind you, the Semafor piece doesn’t go into any kind of detail there, instead summarizing the issue so it can get right to Sinema’s money quote:

She voted just last week to block President Joe Biden’s reappointment of a top labor board nominee and shrugged off the resulting criticism from the left in typical fashion: “Don’t give a shit.”

Now there’s a fitting political epitaph if we ever heard one.

There’s more in the interview, like her assessment of her success as a mavericky dealmaker who worked with both sides of the aisle, especially when it came to preserving tax cuts for corporations and the rich, but also on some good things like the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, protections for marriage equality (for now at least), and modest gun law reforms.

“Honestly, I feel like we got 40 years worth of work done in one term,” Sinema said. “I do wish we had gotten immigration done. We tried really hard, but everything else was just pretty freaking amazing.”

Sinema worked closely with Oklahoma Republican James Lankford and Connecticut Democrat Chris Murphy on the border legislation that Donald Trump then told Republicans to kill, so there’s one ragert at least.

Also, we learn she enjoyed working with “moderate” Republicans like Rob Portman and Mitt Romney, although the piece glosses over that weird Ted Lasso cosplay she and Romney did for Halloween in 2021, and who can blame the editors for having slightly more concern for readers’ digestion than we do?

The piece does some very minimal, both-sidesy “what do her colleagues think” due diligence, pairing fellow Arizonan Mark Kelly’s politely positive comments about her being a reliably pro-Arizona vote with a far more critical assessment from Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), who said both Sinema and Manchin will most likely, in the long view, be “remembered for the role they played in” first radically paring down and then killing Biden’s Build Back Better bill, with its wide ranging climate agenda and help for working families, paid for by rolling back many of the 2017 Republican tax cuts. That legislation, Sanders said, “could have been transformative to this country.”

As to whether she enjoyed being a senator, Sinema said, “I don’t know if enjoy is the right word. Did I feel like it was meaningful and worthwhile? Mostly. Were there times when I was like, ‘Oh, my God, this place’? Yeah, a lot.”

Yeah we’ll miss you too. But you have to go away first. Please fuck as far off as humanly possible, Bye.

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[Semafor]

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