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Kyrsten Sinema - a DINO?

lpetrich

lpetrich

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Is Arisona Senator Kyrsten Sinema a Democrat in Name Only? (DINO)

 Kyrsten Sinema was born on July 12, 1976 in Tucson, AZ. From Wikipedia,
Sinema has two siblings, an older brother and younger sister.[17][18] Her father was an attorney. Her parents divorced when she was a child and her mother, who had custody of the children, remarried. With her siblings, mother, and stepfather, Sinema moved to DeFuniak Springs, Florida, a small town in the Panhandle.[18] When her stepfather lost his job and the bank foreclosed on their home, the family lived for three years in an abandoned gas station.[19] Sinema has said that for two years they had no toilet or electricity while living there.[20] She later recalled, "My stepdad built a bunk bed for me and my sister. We separated our bunk bed from the kitchen with one of those big chalkboards on rollers. I knew that was weird. A chalkboard shouldn't be a wall. A kitchen should have running water."[20] Sinema was raised as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.[21] According to journalist Jonathan Martin in The New York Times, Sinema has given "contradictory answers about her early life", and Sinema's mother and stepfather had filed court documents saying they had made monthly payments for gas, electricity, and phone bills, even though Sinema had said they had been "without running water or electricity".[22] Asked whether she had embellished details from her childhood, Sinema said, "I've shared what I remember from my childhood. I know what I lived through."[22]
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Rather contradictory.
Sinema graduated as valedictorian from Walton High School in DeFuniak Springs at age 16 and went on to earn her B.A. from Brigham Young University (BYU) in 1995 at age 18.[23][19] She left The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints after graduating from BYU.[21] Sinema returned to Arizona in 1995.[24]

Sinema worked as a social worker from 1995 to 2002 in the Phoenix metropolitan area's Washington Elementary School District[25] and received a Master of Social Work degree from Arizona State University in 1999. In 2004 she earned a J.D. degree from Arizona State University College of Law and became a criminal defense lawyer.[19][25] In 2003 Sinema became an adjunct professor teaching master's-level policy and grant-writing classes at Arizona State University School of Social Work and an adjunct Business Law Professor at Arizona Summit Law School, formerly known as Phoenix School of Law.[26] In 2008, Sinema completed the Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government program for senior executives in state and local government as a David Bohnett LGBTQ Victory Institute Leadership Fellow. In 2012 she earned a Ph.D. in justice studies, also from Arizona State.[19][27]
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lpetrich said:
Is Arisona Senator Kyrsten Sinema a Democrat in Name Only? (DINO)



 Kyrsten Sinema was born on July 12, 1976 in Tucson, AZ. From Wikipedia,
Sinema has two siblings, an older brother and younger sister.[17][18] Her father was an attorney. Her parents divorced when she was a child and her mother, who had custody of the children, remarried. With her siblings, mother, and stepfather, Sinema moved to DeFuniak Springs, Florida, a small town in the Panhandle.[18] When her stepfather lost his job and the bank foreclosed on their home, the family lived for three years in an abandoned gas station.[19] Sinema has said that for two years they had no toilet or electricity while living there.[20] She later recalled, "My stepdad built a bunk bed for me and my sister. We separated our bunk bed from the kitchen with one of those big chalkboards on rollers. I knew that was weird. A chalkboard shouldn't be a wall. A kitchen should have running water."[20] Sinema was raised as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.[21] According to journalist Jonathan Martin in The New York Times, Sinema has given "contradictory answers about her early life", and Sinema's mother and stepfather had filed court documents saying they had made monthly payments for gas, electricity, and phone bills, even though Sinema had said they had been "without running water or electricity".[22] Asked whether she had embellished details from her childhood, Sinema said, "I've shared what I remember from my childhood. I know what I lived through."[22]
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Rather contradictory.
Sinema graduated as valedictorian from Walton High School in DeFuniak Springs at age 16 and went on to earn her B.A. from Brigham Young University (BYU) in 1995 at age 18.[23][19] She left The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints after graduating from BYU.[21] Sinema returned to Arizona in 1995.[24]

Sinema worked as a social worker from 1995 to 2002 in the Phoenix metropolitan area's Washington Elementary School District[25] and received a Master of Social Work degree from Arizona State University in 1999. In 2004 she earned a J.D. degree from Arizona State University College of Law and became a criminal defense lawyer.[19][25] In 2003 Sinema became an adjunct professor teaching master's-level policy and grant-writing classes at Arizona State University School of Social Work and an adjunct Business Law Professor at Arizona Summit Law School, formerly known as Phoenix School of Law.[26] In 2008, Sinema completed the Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government program for senior executives in state and local government as a David Bohnett LGBTQ Victory Institute Leadership Fellow. In 2012 she earned a Ph.D. in justice studies, also from Arizona State.[19][27]
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I think she has had a difficult time figuring out who she needs to pander to in order to remain in Congress. She's young enough to see which way the wind is blowing (to the left) but she will have a hard time holding her seat in the near term.

her stepfather lost his job and the bank foreclosed on their home, the family lived for three years in an abandoned gas station
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That might tend to make a person pragmatic about securing themselves.
 
She started in politics in the Green Party, working on Ralph Nader's campaign in 2000.

In 2001 and 2002, she ran for some local offices as an independent, losing each time.

Kyrsten Sinema Capitalism letter 22 Feb 2002 - Newspapers.com
Capitalism damaging

Sharon Girardin says posting a blown-up dollar bill in classrooms is a good way to teach students the nation's motto ("Our founders' beliefs," Letter, Friday) She's right. A huge dollar bill is the most accurate way to teach children the real motto of the United States: In the Almighty Dollar We Trust.

Capitalism gave us NAFTA; which was supposedly designed to benefit the United States and Mexico, but in reality benefits only wealthy Americans, leaving both American and Mexican workers holding the short end of the dollar.

Capitalism also gave us the World Bank and WTO, which mandate draconian measures of Third World loan recipients, such as the original requirement in South Africa that the government jail all union organizers, or laws that prevent countries from growing certain crops so that they are forced to import them at exorbitant rates, and Enron (no explanation needed).

Until the average American realizes that capitalism dam- ages her livelihood while augmenting the livelihoods of the wealthy, the Almighty Dollar will continue to rule. It certainly is not ruling in our favor.

Kyrsten Sinema
Phoenix

The writer plans run for a seat in the state House of Representatives from District 15.
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lpetrich said:
Is Arisona Senator Kyrsten Sinema a Democrat in Name Only? (DINO)

 Kyrsten Sinema was born on July 12, 1976 in Tucson, AZ. From Wikipedia,
Sinema has two siblings, an older brother and younger sister.[17][18] Her father was an attorney. Her parents divorced when she was a child and her mother, who had custody of the children, remarried. With her siblings, mother, and stepfather, Sinema moved to DeFuniak Springs, Florida, a small town in the Panhandle.[18] When her stepfather lost his job and the bank foreclosed on their home, the family lived for three years in an abandoned gas station.[19] Sinema has said that for two years they had no toilet or electricity while living there.[20] She later recalled, "My stepdad built a bunk bed for me and my sister. We separated our bunk bed from the kitchen with one of those big chalkboards on rollers. I knew that was weird. A chalkboard shouldn't be a wall. A kitchen should have running water."[20] Sinema was raised as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.[21] According to journalist Jonathan Martin in The New York Times, Sinema has given "contradictory answers about her early life", and Sinema's mother and stepfather had filed court documents saying they had made monthly payments for gas, electricity, and phone bills, even though Sinema had said they had been "without running water or electricity".[22] Asked whether she had embellished details from her childhood, Sinema said, "I've shared what I remember from my childhood. I know what I lived through."[22]
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Rather contradictory.
Sinema graduated as valedictorian from Walton High School in DeFuniak Springs at age 16 and went on to earn her B.A. from Brigham Young University (BYU) in 1995 at age 18.[23][19] She left The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints after graduating from BYU.[21] Sinema returned to Arizona in 1995.[24]

Sinema worked as a social worker from 1995 to 2002 in the Phoenix metropolitan area's Washington Elementary School District[25] and received a Master of Social Work degree from Arizona State University in 1999. In 2004 she earned a J.D. degree from Arizona State University College of Law and became a criminal defense lawyer.[19][25] In 2003 Sinema became an adjunct professor teaching master's-level policy and grant-writing classes at Arizona State University School of Social Work and an adjunct Business Law Professor at Arizona Summit Law School, formerly known as Phoenix School of Law.[26] In 2008, Sinema completed the Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government program for senior executives in state and local government as a David Bohnett LGBTQ Victory Institute Leadership Fellow. In 2012 she earned a Ph.D. in justice studies, also from Arizona State.[19][27]
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I didn't read all the links. But based on what you stated stated, you seems like a typical moderate: pro business and fiscal conservative; liberal on social issues. There are a lot of people like this in the democratic party. If you cede their vote to the republicans, we'll lose the next election.
 
So I guess she grew up. Maybe there is still hope for political toddlers like AOC to grow up and leave their childish ways (i.e. socialism) behind?
 
Derec said:
So I guess she grew up. Maybe there is still hope for political toddlers like AOC to grow up and leave their childish ways (i.e. socialism) behind?
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Generally most polticians reflect the people who vote for them. AOC would not get elected in Arizona with her current views. The dems need to be a big party tent that allows many different view points - or else we'll get destroyed election day.
 

She ran for the Arizona House of Representatives as a Green in 2002, coming in last out of 5 candidates with only 8% of the vote.

She joined the Democratic Party in 2004 and ran for the Arizona House again that year, winning the election. She won again in 2006 and 2008, and in 2009 and 2010, she was Assistant Minority Leader in the AZ House.

She ran for AZ Senate in 2010 and won, she ran for the US House of Representatives in 2012, winning again, and winning again in 2014 and 2016. In 2018, she ran for US Senate and won. Kyrsten Sinema - Ballotpedia has more details.

From Elle magazine back in 2013:
America's Most Colorful Congresswoman: Kyrsten Sinema

Representing Arizona and also a new generation of politicians, Congresswoman Kyrsten Sinema knows what it's like to live in an abandoned gas station, treats her bisexuality like it ain't no thing, and isn't afraid to wear fuchsia.

...
In one of the more conservative statehouses in the country, Sinema was ready, as she puts it, "to face off for justice." Bills she considered "travesties"—such as draconian immigration laws and abortion restrictions—would pass with supermajorities, despite her fiery floor speeches. When legislation was pending to ban women from selling their eggs, Sinema took to the floor to say, "You keep your hands off my eggs, and I'll keep my hands off your sperm."

...
Although Sinema says she's "always been out," her first public comment as an elected official came in 2005, after a Republican colleague's speech insulted LGBT people. "We're simply people like everyone else who want and deserve respect," she passionately declared. Later, when reporters asked about her use of the first person, Sinema replied, "Duh, I'm bisexual."
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From Elle in 2013:
Determined to help poor children, Sinema got a master's degree in social work at Arizona State University in 1999, and then took a job as a social worker in a low-income elementary school in Phoenix. She converted the former girls' locker room into a family resource center; her office was in the gym, and the showers were used as a clothing bank. But she quickly realized that these efforts were just stopgaps and started looking for big-picture ways to fix them.

In 2000, her school district's budget was on the chopping block, and her fellow social workers nominated her to go to the state capitol to fight the cuts. As she walked into the building, she says, "I was scared I wasn't knowledgeable enough." But once she started talking to legislators, "I realized I was way overeducated. I had the skill level. And I realized there weren't people like me inside the building. At that moment, I decided to run for office."
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So she is an activist-turned-politician like Bernie Sanders and AOC and Cori Bush.

From WaPo in 2013:
“I have great respect for the LDS church — their commitment to family and taking care of each other is exemplary,” Sinema says. “I just don’t believe the tenets of the faith that they believe.”

Debates percolate on the Internet about Sinema’s spiritual beliefs, a dynamic fueled by the vague responses she gives when asked about this aspect of her life. The fascination with Sinema’s spiritual life is another source of pique for her. She is frequently referred to as agnostic or non-theist. But when I asked, she wouldn’t go into detail, saying merely, “I am not a member of a faith community.” What she does believe, she says, is that Americans deserve “freedom of religion and freedom from religion.”
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From azcentral.com in 2017:
Republican campaign operatives, and the Jeff Flake campaign itself, revived the charge that Sinema is a liberal radical. Former Green Party candidate. Ralph Nader supporter. Self-proclaimed “Prada Socialist.”

This isn’t exactly unfair. Sinema does have a radical background. She did all those things.

However, she now has a 10-year record as an elected official, six as a state legislator and four as a member of Congress. She has recast herself as a Democratic centrist, and has the voting record to back that up.

...
She’s not been a consistent centrist. She generally has supported easing up on business regulation, except where the environment is concerned. On social and cultural issues, she remains very liberal.
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Kyrsten Sinema's anti-war activist past under scrutiny as she runs for Senate - CNN Politics
Democratic Rep. Kyrsten Sinema’s past ties to far-left groups are resurfacing as she campaigns to win Arizona’s Senate race against her Republican opponent, Rep. Martha McSally. Sinema is running on her Congressional record as a hawk on military spending and defense, proclaiming in an ad she would do “whatever it takes” to keep America safe and boasting that she fought for “billions for military spending.”
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So she wanted to show what a warmonger she was, or at least seem like one to get the warmonger vote.
When George W. Bush was elected president, Sinema quickly began to make a name for herself in the state with left-wing activism. In the run-up to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Sinema, then a law student at Arizona State University, was a frequent organizer of anti-war rallies, organizing 15 by the start of the Iraq War.

Sinema would later boast on a progressive message board in 2006 of her opposition to Afghanistan from the start and continued opposition, saying she opposed war in all forms.
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Before they were moderates: Sinema, other Dems shed liberal past for 2018 midterms | Fox News
n this contest, Sinema has cultivated an image as a moderate Democrat in a red state – for example, she has said Immigration and Customs Enforcement holds an "important function" even as progressives call for abolishing ICE.

But it wasn’t long ago that she was a Ralph Nader-supporting, pink tutu-wearing Iraq War protester who referred to herself as a “Prada socialist” in 2006. She first ran, and lost, a state legislative race in 2002 on Arizona’s liberal Green Party ticket.
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Kyrsten Sinema Wants You To Know She’s Not A Progressive | HuffPost
In the 2018 race, she was asked about whether she supports Medicare for All. She doesn't, and she said that she prefers to try to improve Obamacare.
But if the race has been about two things, the second thing is Sinema’s past and ideology. National and state Republicans have relentlessly portrayed her as a far-left extremist, typically citing her work as an anti-war activist in the 2000s and early parts of her time in the Arizona State Legislature. They’ve noted she danced with witches (yes, witches) and wore a pink tutu at an anti-war rally. They’ve circulated videos of her calling Arizona’s GOP-led legislature “crazy.” The attacks culminated when McSally ignored a question about climate change at a debate and instead accused Sinema of “treason.”

There’s no doubt Sinema once identified as a progressive. She began her political career as a spokeswoman for the Green Party. She told a radio host back in 2006 that she was the most liberal member of the Arizona State Legislature. She called herself a “former socialist” at the Netroots Nation conference in 2006. In a 2002 letter to the editor of the Arizona Republic, she wrote that “capitalism damages [the] livelihood” of the “average American” and railed against the World Trade Organization and NAFTA. Even on health care, Sinema’s website for her 2002 run for Phoenix City Council promised she would “work towards a system of universal health care” and wanted to remove “the profit-making element” from health care.
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So she once supported Medicare for All or something similar.
 
Yeah, she should run as a Republican. She is too far to the right than a Dem needs to win that state.
 
She started her Senate career in a remarkable way.

Kyrsten Sinema swears in to Congress using copy of Constitution instead of religious book | TheHill - The Hill
Kyrsten Sinema Swore In To Congress On The Constitution - Refinery 2019
Not only did Sinema show up in an unforgettable Marilyn Monroe-meets Elle Woods-meets blonde Miss Frizzle outfit, but she swore on a law book containing the U.S. Constitution rather than a Bible. The book included the texts of the U.S. and Arizona constitutions, according to The Arizona Republic.

"Kyrsten always gets sworn in on a Constitution simply because of her love for the Constitution," her spokesperson John LaBombard told the newspaper.
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Blonde hair, a white sleeveless top, and a print-pattern dark-purple skirt.
Sinema's unaffiliated status may be an important first, but she's hardly the first government official to be sworn in on something other than a Bible. According to Religion News reporter Jack Jenkins, among others, John Quincy Adams, the sixth president, was sworn in on a "volume of law." Rep. Tulsi Gabbard from Hawaii, the first person of the Hindu faith in Congress, used a Bhagavad Gita for her swearing-in. Hawaii Sen. Mazie Hirono, a Buddhist, didn't use a book.

On Thursday, both Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan were sworn in on Korans; Omar on her grandfather's and Tlaib on a copy from Thomas Jefferson's personal collection.
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From that story,
To the frustration of many Arizona progressives, Ms. Sinema has shifted from a firebrand — she told The Arizona Republic in 2003 “that the real Saddam and Osama lovers were Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush” — to membership in the congressional Blue Dog Coalition, the most conservative group of House Democrats. Last year, she joined a small group of Democrats to back a bill that was promoted by President Trump and named for a woman killed by an undocumented immigrant, which would significantly stiffen penalties on migrants who illegally re-enter the country.

In her current race, Ms. Sinema holds up Senator Joe Manchin III, a centrist Democrat from West Virginia, as one of her role models; goes to lengths to avoid criticizing Mr. Trump; and is focusing on priorities for veterans and law enforcement. She has featured her Marine-turned-police-officer stepbrother in one ad; another shows machine gun-equipped helicopters, aircraft carriers and images of troops high-fiving. “Security and strength,” the announcer intones, “whatever it takes.”

...
The 42-year-old lawmaker’s metamorphosis began when, after a failed bid for the state legislature as a Green Party-aligned independent candidate, she won a statehouse seat as a Democrat in 2004. In the state Capitol, she began working with Republicans and found success — and attention — by forging bipartisan coalitions.

...
Lauren Kuby, a liberal city councilwoman in Tempe, emphasized that Ms. Sinema is “a solid progressive” on many issues. But Ms. Kuby was blunt about what was behind the evolution.

“Kyrsten has always had her eyes on a larger electorate,” she said, acknowledging “the driver being ambition.”
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She wanted right-wingers votes, so she went to the right on some issues, it seems.
 
NYT:
Ms. Sinema herself has acknowledged her changing approach. In her 2009 book, “Unite and Conquer: How to Build Coalitions That Win and Last,” she argued that pragmatism was necessary to make progressive gains.
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But she's mainly run on her biography, and some of what she has said has been contradicted by others.
Yet Ms. Sinema’s unreserved statements about being homeless, and the public records pertaining to her upbringing, are noteworthy in part because of Ms. Sinema’s own views about the importance of candor and speaking precisely in public life.

She has scolded House Speaker Paul D. Ryan for apparently misstating his marathon time. She turned the importance of honesty into a section, called “Truth,” of her 2009 how-to book on political organizing, and said “sometimes I’m too honest.” She also writes that she is “a big fan of honesty” and adds that “it’s also wrong to tell half-truths and be sneaky about the truth — no doubt about it.”
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From POLITICO:
Sinema has long cultivated a bipartisan posture. But her support for Donald Trump nominees like Attorney General William Barr and her lack of zeal for impeachment are part of a political profile drawing blowback from progressives and cheers from the GOP.

Yet Sinema is also setting herself up to be a pivotal vote the next time the Democrats are in power. And her radical breed of centrism could be a headache for the party.
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Something that has now happened. The Democrats are neck-and-neck in the Senate, and for Democrats to get anything, they need the votes of *every* Senator.
Take the liberal drive to bust down age-old Senate rules in order to pass “Medicare for All” or a “Green New Deal.” Sinema not only opposes getting rid of the 60-vote filibuster threshold for legislation, she wants to restore the supermajority requirement for presidential nominees that has been weakened by both parties.
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Huh?

She hasn't done much to try to reshape the party, and she's supported Joe Kennedy III against Ed Markey for MA Senator.

She said about impeachment "That’s not my job, that’s not my role."
And observers watching her on the Senate floor during a vote would be forgiven for thinking she’s a Republican, considering her chats with GOP senators like Majority Whip John Thune of South Dakota, Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Kevin Cramer of North Dakota.

She spends at least as much time on the Republican side of the chamber as the Democratic half and lists Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas as an ally atop the Commerce Committee’s Aviation and Space subcommittee. Cruz returned the favor by declining to lump the Arizona Democrat in with what he sees as an increasingly socialist Democratic Party.
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Then a picture of her being close with Ted Cruz.
Sinema’s attempt to be above the political fray is central to her identity and her goal of building relationships with as many colleagues as possible.

Party leaders’ whip counts? Not her problem. Using her platform as senator to regularly promote her views to a national audience? Not interested. Skipping caucus lunches almost everyone else attends? She’ll be there when it matters for Arizona.

And missing votes on the EPA chief for an Ironman race?

“Ironman’s pretty badass. It’s awesome,” she responded when asked if she got any criticism for skipping town for New Zealand just two months into her term.
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Kyrsten Sinema Unsure Which Party She’ll Vote For In 2020
But Sinema has charted a different course. Instead of emulating progressives like Brown and Baldwin from light-red states, she has named West Virginia’s Joe Manchin as her role model (a Democrat who answers to an electorate that went for Trump by 40 points).
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Something we are seeing right now. Back then, she voted against AOC's Green New Deal resolution, not joining her fellow Democrats who voted "present" as an attempt to boycott Mitch McConnell's vote on it without committee hearings.

"Which is to say: Sinema has decided to err on the side of being needlessly reactionary."

The article got comments like "Sorry, Minnie, but as a Democrat who voted for Synema I can tell you that most of the people I know who voted the way I did are planning to vote for her opponent in the 2024 primary. She's been a big letdown to us all and WILL be a one-term Senator." and "Good for you. I just had the feeling she's another confusing, confused candidate like Tulsi Gabbard -- I don't trust people like that. Never got interested in her specifics, she just seemed sketchy to me. But then in my state we're used to solid folks like Klobuchar and Franken and Wellstone, not this crazy quilt stuff."


How Kyrsten Sinema Sold Out | The Nation
Sinema joined the Democratic Party in 2004, and shed her self-described “bomb-thrower” reputation over time. Erika Andiola, a longtime immigration activist based in Phoenix, first met Sinema through her work on immigration in the early 2000s, while the lawmaker was working in the state legislature. Andiola said Sinema was always “extremely helpful and supportive” of her work on deportation cases, noting that the Arizona Democrat did a lot of work with immigrant communities and on the border as a social worker. “She was like a champion for a lot of us who were pushing in the state legislature against some of these anti-immigrant bills,” Andiola said. During her time in the Arizona state legislature, Sinema was considered one of the most progressive members of her caucus, and fought zealously for many of the same things her Senate colleagues now support. In 2011, the Phoenix New Times named her a “local lefty icon.”
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Then about KS's defeat of Martha McSally in 2018.
It looked, on its face, like a victory. Before Georgia Senator Jon Ossoff was sworn into office, Sinema was the chamber’s youngest Democrat at 44 years old. She stands out from her Senate colleagues, sporting vibrant purple wigs, bold patterned dresses, and thigh-high boots, in an institution known for its bland, impersonal style.
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But KS did a big turnaround on immigration while in office.
There were signs of what was to come when Sinema entered national politics. During her first term in Congress, she joined the Blue Dog Coalition, a corporate-friendly group of Democrats obsessed with finding common ground with conservatives. It was also clear from the beginning, Andiola recalled, that Sinema “really believed the way to try to win or to push back on legislation was by working with Republicans.” Sinema voted to block the admission of Syrian and Iraqi refugees and has often sided with Republicans on immigration, including in support of the punitive anti-immigrant proposal known as “Kate’s Law,” which Trump pushed as part of his crackdown. In 2018, she voted with House Republicans to support Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a rogue agency that has faced countless allegations of abuse and inhumane treatment. For Andiola, Sinema’s rightward turn, particularly on immigration, has been disappointing to see. “I don’t know what she believes anymore,” Andiola said.

“At this point it’s not just the internal sort of bipartisanship, like making friends with other senators now or other members of Congress before—now she’s also reflecting that in her own narrative and that’s the part I find really hard,” Andiola continued. “Because I don’t work for her anymore so I hear the narrative and I think I know why she’s doing it, it’s just really hard to watch.”
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Sinema goes viral for wearing 'Dangerous Creature' sweater on Senate floor | TheHill
Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) went viral on Tuesday for wearing a pink “Dangerous Creature” sweater while presiding on the Senate floor.

The statement piece caused such a stir that Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) was caught on a microphone telling her: “You’re breaking the internet.”

“Good,” the Democrat responded with a shrug.

...
Sinema has emerged as a style icon during her time on Capitol Hill. She is regularly seen wearing colorful dresses, glasses and lipstick. During coronavirus lockdowns last year, the blonde Arizonan began wearing bright wigs to cover her darker hues while also reminding her constituents to avoid salons.
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How Kyrsten Sinema Went from Lefty Activist to Proud Neoliberal Democrat
The story of Senator Kyrsten Sinema — a former Green Party–aligned activist who happily rejected a minimum wage hike recently and is now one the most right-wing Democrats in the Senate — is about how a desperate thirst for power can debase even the most idealistic progressive.

The halls of Congress are filled with individuals who at some point abandoned almost everything they once believed in. More often than not, it’s a cushy, post-political corporate job or lobbying position that might have led them to give up on whatever led them to enter politics in the first place. Rarer is the person who’s done it out of pure, unbridled political ambition.

...
So what is it that led Sinema to do a complete 180 on almost every position she ever took on almost any issue, from war to inequality to government spending? The answer is that she shifted right little by little, at each moment when her political ascent demanded it, a death by a thousand compromises that has turned Sinema into a right-wing Democrat who makes a virtue of defying not just the party’s Left but even its center.
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She likes to talk about the struggles of her early years, and how she got a master's in social work and a law degree, complete with being a "defense attorney who represents murderers" for awhile. Those are her words, and some of her opponents have jumped on that.
In her early political years, this narrative arc helped explain her commitment to fighting for those on society’s margins. In later years, she would add a bootstrapping moral to the story, a sign of the work ethic that, with a little bit of help, can get anyone to the top in America. Over time, the role of government support in the story would be gradually de-emphasized in its retelling.
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That's a common whine from right-wingers: "I didn't need anybody's help."
Using Arizona’s public financing law (“I don’t believe in accepting money in exchange for votes. That’s bribery.”), she ran as an independent for Phoenix City Council and later the state House, pointing to the lopsided distribution of wealth that left poor immigrant families with no safety net, and calling for better education, comprehensive health care coverage, and improved childcare and mental health coverage.
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She protested the Iraq War in 2003, and when Joe Lieberman, Al Gore's VP candidate and a big supporter of the Iraq War, stopped in Tucson to campaign, she said He’s a shame to Democrats. I don’t even know why he’s running. He seems to want to get Republicans voting for him. What kind of strategy is that?”

But that seems like why she is taking her recent positions, to get Republicans to vote for her.
 
When she was elected to the AZ State House in 2004,
And Sinema used the seat she won for undoubtedly progressive causes. She opposed abortion restrictions; fought for extending the rights of straight married couples to gay ones; led a successful effort to kill a ban on affirmative action; spoke out against drug testing of welfare beneficiaries and cuts and regressive changes to Medicaid; and spearheaded the fight to kill a measure banning same-sex marriage. She did what few lawmakers did at the time, certainly in Arizona, and talked about mass incarceration, attending a prison reform rally in 2008 where she declared that “individuals deserve to have a start again.”

As she had said years earlier about her political career: “We need people to push in from the edges.”

Sinema was particularly outspoken when it came to immigrant rights and the plight of the undocumented. ...

She consistently spoke out against the push to further militarize and police the border and immigrant communities, and stood shoulder-to-shoulder with protesters demonstrating against harsher immigration laws. ...

Some of Sinema’s early high-profile bills recalled her Green Party roots, such as legislation outlawing horse-tripping in rodeos and idling by certain vehicles, and bills encouraging recycling and discouraging plastic bag use. ...

Particularly successful was Sinema’s bill to divest the state’s retirement funds from companies supporting the genocide in Darfur, which cleared both the state House and Senate unanimously before being signed into law, albeit somewhat watered down to pass constitutional muster. ...
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Despite that record, she barely said anything about raising the minimum wage, let alone do anything about it. "Despite her earlier criticisms of capitalism and how unfairly wealth was shared, Sinema, during this period, overwhelmingly made headlines for the issues of immigration and LGBTQ rights, while pocketbook issues took a backseat."

When AZ got some massive budget deficits in 2009 and 2010 as a result of the financial crisis and big tax cuts, KS went along with the Republicans, who preferred budget cuts and no tax increases. "This attempt at coalition-building failed."

"Even though she soon abandoned it, Sinema’s flirtation with austerity signaled a lasting shift."
In a couple of years, Sinema would be loudly professing her kinship with various hardline Republicans to the press, shocking progressives when she said of state senate president Russell Pearce — the anti-immigrant extremist responsible for Arizona’s infamous “papers please” law, and who was literally friends with a neo-Nazi — that she “love[d] him” and would “love to see him run for Congress.
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Thus reversing her earlier stance on immigrants.
 
Then her run for a House seat in 2012. She faced a vicious three-way Democratic primary, and she seemed rather vaguely populist. She got a lot of nominations from the likes of EMILY's List and the AFL-CIO, and she faced a lot of attacks about her past, but she won the nomination. "While the GOP worked to paint her as an oddball extremist, Sinema attacked her opponent as a Tea Party radical who would cut education."
Upon entering Congress, Sinema wasted no time before moving sharply right. Less than a month in, she joined the United Solutions Caucus and signed onto a letter calling for bipartisan proposals to secure the country’s fiscal health, including “reforming” Social Security and Medicare, cutting corporate tax rates and regulations, and reducing government spending. She soon became a member of a series of similarly conservative, business-friendly congressional groups: the Blue Dog Coalition (then at its low point in terms of numbers and influence), No Labels, New Democrats, and Third Way, the Wall Street-funded neoliberal organization, of which she became honorary House cochair in 2015 (and did so again as a senator in 2019).
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She got into the House Financial Services Committee, then mostly a "money committee", where members could raise money from the companies that they oversaw. That was before such populists as AOC, Ayanna Pressley, and Rashida Tlaib got into it.

"Sinema largely spent the next five years on the committee carrying water for the financial services industry, whose presence in Arizona happened to be concentrated in Sinema’s newly won district." For instance, "one of Sinema’s earliest actions of significance on the committee was to approve a partial rollback of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law, one literally written by Citibank and backed by the Chamber of Commerce, to allow them to trade certain derivatives and still get a taxpayer bailout if it all went wrong."

"Later that year, Sinema again struck a blow for the forgotten men and women of Wall Street against the power of Big Retirees," as the article put it.
Maybe the coup de grace came in 2018, when in the middle of her Senate campaign, Sinema became one of just thirty-three House Democrats to vote for the infamous Crapo banking bill, sponsored by right-wing Idaho Republican Mike Crapo." Essentially a repeal of Dodd-Frank.

...
Always pointing to the needs of small businesses, farmers, community banks, even consumers, Sinema waged a one-woman war on regulations, cosponsoring, introducing, and voting for a slew of bills to repeal or delay them.

...
Far from giving voice to the voiceless against the din of the powerful, Sinema worked to do exactly the opposite.

...
Even as she touted her own experiences with homelessness and poverty, Sinema repeatedly introduced a bill to loosen regulations on mobile home loans, letting predatory lenders slap their usually lower-income buyers with bigger fees and penalties, and charge them interest rates higher than their already extortionately high rates, measures that eventually passed in the Crapo bill. As she later told a local chamber of commerce in Tempe, in one instance, she had been inspired in her anti-regulatory endeavors by a tip from the president of the local branch of First International Bank.
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She seemed to be one of the biggest lackeys of Wall Street in Congress, voting for 12 out of 19 bills that Americans for Financial Reform said "served the interests or wishes of Wall Street and the financial industry at the expense of the public interest". Thus giving her one of the worst records of House Democrats.

"The industry loves her back. Sinema is as warmly received now at Chamber of Commerce events as she once was at antiwar rallies or prison reform protests." She got a rating from that organization higher than for all but nine House Democrats.

"It’s probably not a coincidence that, as she’s proven herself a reliable foot soldier for the financial services industry in Congress, their generosity toward her has only increased." in the form of campaign contributions from securities and investment firms.
  • 2012: $28,346
  • 2014: $89,050
  • 2016: $181,258
  • 2018: $890,000
“I spend a lot of time fundraising,” Sinema had told Chris Hayes in 2012. And sure enough, from her first year in Congress, when she rivaled Nancy Pelosi in money raised, to just before announcing her Senate bid, Sinema has been one of the most prolific fundraisers in the House.
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This is someone who once called private donations "bribery".

"Americans for Financial Reform puts the total amount of her contributions from the wider finance sector for 2017–2018 alone at over $2.7 million, placing her in the top ten among all of Congress for the sector."

The article continued with more examples of what a sellout she had become, taking positions opposite of what she had taken earlier in her political career.
After starting her career attacking the way wealth was distributed in the country, Sinema now backed repealing the estate tax, something that, at the time, would have benefited the country’s top 0.2 percent wealthiest estates. ...

After starting out decrying the plight of the undocumented and defending an Iraqi refugee in court, she now talked about a “tough but fair path to citizenship” and securing the border, and voted to send more manpower and resources toward that goal. ...

After making her first splash as an antiwar activist who called warmonger Joe Lieberman a “shame” to her party, Sinema wound up putting her decision on whether or not to vote for war in Syria up to an online poll, and voted for a series of gargantuan defense budgets, including one that authorized the military to train and equip “moderate” rebels in the country, who predictably turned out to be not so moderate. ...

After winning awards from environmental groups early on and getting press for environmental habits like reusing sandwich bags, Sinema has ended up with a 76 percent lifetime rating from the League of Conservation Voters, markedly low for a Democrat: the second lowest for the party in the current Senate after Joe Manchin, and lower than just five serving House Democrats. ...

And like many party centrists who cling to Obamacare when opposing more far-reaching reforms while helping to dismantle it when no one’s looking, Sinema has repeatedly joined with Republicans to pick apart the law, despite being handpicked by Obama in 2009 to help him fight for it. ...

As with many politicians, it’s hard to discern if Sinema’s actions are driven by political considerations or genuine love of the game. On one hand, her district is only one-third Democrat, no doubt impacting the way she votes and the issues she champions. On the other, she turned down an offer in 2014 to switch to a more liberal, Democrat-heavy seat.
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(the earlier article)
Far from simply antagonizing the Left, Sinema does all the things that most infuriate the Democratic Party’s squishy center: she went after Obamacare, didn’t bother to campaign with Hillary Clinton a week before the 2016 election, voted in line with Trump half the time, and wouldn’t even back her own Democratic counterpart in the Senate when he ran for reelection. Years back, groups like MoveOn threatened to primary Sinema for her rebellions. Once she became the first Democrat since 1988 to win a Senate race in Arizona, those voices seemed to go silent.
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Because a Democrat who often acts like a Republican is better than a Republican who always acts like a Republican, I think.

(the article linked to above)
"It’s the timeless story of an earnest do-gooder turned Washington monster and what happens when we don’t hold politicians accountable."
One of the most enduring parables in American culture is about “going Washington” — it is a tale of the earnest do-gooder deciding to run for office on a pledge to be a voice for the voiceless, then getting to the Beltway and quickly becoming a swamp monster selling out the folks back home.

There are countless examples of this phenomenon, but we should understand that there has maybe never been such a pure personification of this cliché as Kyrsten Sinema — and she managed to capture the entire trope in one iconic moment that should never, ever be forgotten.

...
Unlike many corporatists in Washington, Sinema did not get her start as a standard-issue business-friendly cyborg created in a Westworld-style factory at the local chamber of commerce. She was a Green Party icon and social worker who had been elected to Arizona’s legislature as a proud, unabashed progressive. She even became a board member of our organization, which was designed to counter groups like the American Legislative Exchange Council and champion a progressive economic agenda.
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Referring to authors David Sirota and Andrew Perez.

The earlier article speculated that she was mainly interested in advancing her political career. This will likely mean a continued career in the Senate, and maybe even the Presidency.
 
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