Indianz.Com > News > Cronkite News: Sen. Sinema faces pressure to back Democratic agenda
Can you hear me now? Centrist positioning makes Sinema a player, pariah
Friday, October 1, 2021
Cronkite News
WASHINGTON – Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema’s refusal to back the Biden administration’s $3.5 trillion social and clean-energy spending package has made her a target for Democrats – and possibly “the most powerful person in Washington right now,” one analyst said.
It’s not the first time that Sinema, a Democrat, has bucked her party on high-profile measures that need every Democratic vote to pass in the evenly divided Senate.
That has brought scorn from Democrats in Washington and Arizona, with the state party this month threatening to formally censure her if she “continues to delay, disrupt or votes to gut” party priorities.
But it has also landed Sinema numerous meetings with the president this week and led to surprisingly high support for her among Arizona Republicans, according to a recent survey.
It’s a balancing act, but one that has “all eyes … on Sen. Sinema,” said Mike Noble, chief of research at OH Predictive Insights.
While Sinema “shouldn’t have to give every single detail of every single thought,” a little more communication could be helpful, Rodriguez said. But she said Sinema’s reticence also keeps her from painting herself into a corner. The fact that she has continued to talk with the president is a good sign, Rodriguez said. “This is a really complicated issue that has been made a lot more complicated by a lot of the negotiating in public,” Rodriguez said. In two decades of working in and around Congress, Rodriguez said she “has never seen anything like this,” and that the “second-by-second twist and turns have heightened the temperature.” But it’s important to remember, she said, that legislating can be a long, drawn-out process. “If the vote were to happen today and it were to fail, it’s important to realize that will only be another step in the journey of getting the bill done,” she said. For more stories from Cronkite News, visit cronkitenews.azpbs.org.Statement on Budget Reconciliation Negotiations pic.twitter.com/QZpaMXxm7q
— Kyrsten Sinema (@SenatorSinema) September 30, 2021
Note: This story originally appeared on Cronkite News. It is published via a Creative Commons license. Cronkite News is produced by the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University.
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