Sinema in 2019 for failing to vote along party lines. “It’s just beyond my understanding that someone could go from a Code Pink activist to saying, ‘Yeah, there are some good things Trump did and I vote with him sometimes,’” said Jenise Porter, an activist in Arizona who helped draft a resolution censuring Ms. “She’s a great chess player.”īut her history as a liberal has only sharpened the sense of resentment she inspires among progressive activists. “It wasn’t by chance that it happened,” Mr. McSally again in November, hewing closely to the playbook Ms. Senator Mark Kelly, a Democrat, defeated Ms. Sinema defeated Martha McSally, a Republican, in 2018 in large part by showcasing her centrist credentials and emphasizing her across-the-aisle outreach to woo moderate voters. It is a battle-tested approach in Arizona, where Ms. “That’s helpful just to be able to get into a dialogue when things get hard.” “She’s developed a lot of conversational relationships with a lot of people on the other side,” said Senator James Lankford, Republican of Oklahoma. Separately, she was working with Republicans to secure a $25 billion relief fund for independent restaurants and place stricter guardrails around how states could use stimulus funding. Sinema told him on the Senate floor, referring to the modifications that leading Democrats had made to the plan to placate moderates. “We’ve been getting almost everything,” Ms. Sinema implored him not to sink the bill. On Friday, as the Senate sputtered to a halt after Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, balked over the size and duration of federal unemployment payments in the relief package, Ms. Sinema emerged as a key behind-the-scenes mediator, listening as her colleagues sparred over their differences and trying quietly to guide them to middle ground. Sinema never disclosed how she would vote. Biden’s pick to lead his budget office, Ms. ![]() She is known as a maverick in the staid and stodgy Senate, where her colorful wigs and quirky fashion sense - she turned up on one recent day wearing a hot-pink shirt emblazoned with the phrase “DANGEROUS CREATURE” - belie a preference for keeping her opinions to herself and operating behind the scenes.Įven as Democrats fought to salvage the doomed nomination of Neera Tanden, Mr. She has emerged as one of the few true wild cards in her party, with a perpetual asterisk next to her name on Democrats’ whip card. The move was in keeping with her overall approach in Congress, where she served three terms in the House before winning election to the Senate in 2018. Sinema had earlier signaled her discomfort with passing the minimum-wage proposal as part of the pandemic relief bill, a rationale she cited in explaining her vote on Friday, arguing that the Senate should hold a separate debate on the issue. “But we want her to start voting like a Democrat, not a Republican.” ![]() “We want her to be the best senator possible,” said Dan O’Neal, the Arizona state coordinator for Progressive Democrats of America. Biden and to flip the remaining Republican-held Senate seat, all in the hopes of securing a Democratic-controlled Washington that could pass longtime priorities currently constrained by the filibuster. Liberal Democrats labored last year to deliver the state’s critical electoral votes to Mr. Perhaps nowhere is the anger hotter than among progressive activists in Arizona, a state where demographic change has brought about rapid political shifts. Her refusal to embrace progressive priorities like fast-tracking the minimum-wage increase as part of the stimulus bill, along with her opposition to changing Senate rules to kill the filibuster - which effectively requires 60 votes to advance any major legislation - has made her a target for liberals across the country.
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