Sinema censured by Arizona Democrats over support for filibuster
The Arizona Democratic Party (ADP) voted Saturday to censure Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), Phoenix's local ABC affiliate reported.
The ADP warned last week that they planned to censure Sinema, who in 2019 became the first Democratic senator from Arizona since 1995, if she refused to support a Senate rule change to circumvent the filibuster and enable President Biden's voting rights bill to pass. Wednesday night, Sinema joined with Senate Republicans to vote against the rule change, effectively killing the bill.
"I want to be clear, the Arizona Democratic Party is a diverse coalition with plenty of room for policy disagreements, however on the matter of the filibuster and the urgency to protect voting rights, we have been crystal clear. In the choice between an archaic legislative norm and protecting Arizonans' right to vote, we choose the latter," ADP Chair Raquel Terán said in a statement released after the vote to censure Sinema.
The motion to censure the moderate Democrat, which passed unanimously, could be indicative of greater troubles still to come.
According to The Associated Press, Sinema is in a much more precarious position than fellow moderate Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), who also voted against the rule change, because Manchin represents "a state that former President Donald Trump carried by nearly 39 percentage points in 2020," while in Arizona, "Democrats are ascendant."
The Primary Sinema Project has already raised over $300,000 for the Arizona moderate's challenger in the 2024 primary. Meanwhile, a group of top donors Sinema's campaigns have threatened to pull their support, Politico reported, and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has even floated the idea of campaigning on behalf of Sinema's eventual primary opponent.
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