Senator Krysten Sinema, an Arizona Democrat, has often been a thorn in the side of her Democratic colleagues and has no plans to back down from restoring the filibuster despite criticisms from her party.
Appearing alongside Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Monday at the University of Louisville, Sinema doubled down on her position to bring back the 60-vote threshold for "everything," including nominees—a move that could make it near impossible for a 50-50 Senate to usher in President Joe Biden's picks for appointments.
During Monday's lecture on bipartisanship, the senator referred to the supermajority requirement as a "guardrail" that "requires new federal policy to be broadly supported by senators, representing a broader cross-section of Americans."
Sinema, and Senator Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat, have repeatedly faced criticisms from their fellow Democrats for helping Senate Republicans stymie progressive legislation with their long cultivated position on bipartisanship and moderate records.
"If you don't fit in today's Washington, trust me, they want to kick you out. But I've never really wanted to fit in, not in Washington and not anywhere else," Sinema said Monday. "And I was not elected to play politics, I was elected to achieve long-lasting results."
"My pledge is to keep doing just what I've been doing," she added. "I'll work with Leader McConnell, I'll work with [Senate Majority] Leader Schumer. I'll work with Republicans, I'll work with Democrats. I'll work with everyone in between and anyone who's willing to roll up their sleeves and do the hard work."
The senator is staunchly opposed to ending the filibuster even amid calls from the majority of her own party to nuke the 60-vote requirement. Sinema's office emphasized to Newsweek when it reached out for comment that this is not a new position from the Arizona senator.
In a 2019 interview with Politico, Sinema insisted that the Democrats would not get her vote on such a change. "In fact, whether I'm in the majority or the minority I would always vote to reinstate the protections for the minority....It is the right thing for the country," she said.
Her refusal to always fall in line with the Democratic Party has earned pushback even from Manchin, who said he would "never" have backed a primary challenger against a colleague like Sinema did in Massachusetts when she endorsed Representative Joe Kennedy against incumbent Senator Ed Markey. Her independent nature has also earned her praise from GOP senators.
On Monday, McConnell called her "the most effective first-term senator I've seen in my time in the Senate," and said she's been instrumental "if not the principal leader" of striking bipartisan deals in Congress.
"She is—today, what we have too few of in the Democratic Party—a genuine moderate and a dealmaker," the Kentucky Republican said. "You can tell I have a very high opinion of the senator from Arizona, but the biggest compliment to her that she protects the institution of the Senate."
He continued: "It took one hell of a lot of guts for Krysten Sinema to stand up and say 'I'm not going to break the institution in order to achieve a short term goal' and in the end only two, just two of the 50 Democratic senators were willing to protect the institution."
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Katherine Fung is a Newsweek reporter based in New York City. Her focus is reporting on U.S. and world politics. ... Read more
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