“I declare myself independent of the defective partisan system of Washington”: this was announced on Friday, December 9, Kyrsten Sinema in a video. By leaving the Democratic Party, the 46-year-old Arizona senator weakens Joe Biden on the parliamentary level, while starting his political credit, at a time when everything seemed to smile on the Democratic president. Until the resounding announcement of this free electron, the White House indeed openly savored the results of the Democrats, much better than expected, during the very recent midterm elections.
Kyrsten Sinema, already known for having buried some of Joe Biden’s construction sites in Congress, including major electoral reform, promised that “nothing would change” in his behavior. “And I don’t think much changes for Arizona,” she said. In forum published on the website of The Arizona Republic, the senator explained that she had “never fully adapted to either national party” and that “the loudest and most extreme voices continue to push each party to the margins”. “When politicians focus more on denying the opposition party victory than improving American lives, the people who lose are ordinary Americans,” she added.
The White House was quick to temper the senator’s announcement. “We have every reason to believe that we will continue to work” with Kyrsten Sinema, Joe Biden spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement. The main interested party was careful not to say if in the future she would align herself with the Democrats in the vote on the texts of the law.
“Kyrsten is independent, that’s how she’s always been”
This announcement showers in any case the hopes of the Democratic leader to govern with more elbow room for the rest of his mandate. From 51 seats out of 100 in the Senate, the Democratic camp falls to 50, its level before the “midterms” – the Republicans have 49 seats. During the past two years, the president’s party had to deal with a majority on the wire. Kyrsten Sinema’s decision was applauded in the conservative ranks, who now hope to count on his vote on the most disputed texts: “I hope that many others will be inspired by it”, thus launched the elected Lauren Boebert.
As noted the New York TimesKyrsten Sinema was also assiduously courted by Kentucky Senator and Republican leader Mitch McConnell, who praised her for refusing to comply with the filibuster. She appeared with him at an event at the McConnell Center in Louisville last September, drawing criticism from Democrats.
The decision of the senator from Arizona does not radically change the situation. The other chamber of Congress, the House of Representatives, swung to the Republican side after the midterm elections, already putting Joe Biden in a precarious position. During the first two years of Biden’s term, Kyrsten Sinema had displayed a fierce political independence, often seen conversing with his Republican colleagues in the hemicycle. Even as a Democrat, she rarely attended regular party meetings, notes the New York Times.
“Kyrsten is independent, that’s how she always has been,” said Senate Democrat Leader Chuck Schumer, also trying to play down the significance of his announcement. During Joe Biden’s first two years in office, she regularly forced the White House into difficult negotiations with her. For example on the major electoral reform wanted by the 80-year-old Democrat to protect the minority vote, which the senator had torpedoed at the start of 2022.
If she diverged with the Democrats on tax and budgetary policy, the senator was however in phase with them on the main measures in terms of social, cultural and environmental policies. She was one of the main architects of the recent Senate agreement that paved the way for the passage of legislation mandating federal recognition of same-sex marriages, recalls the New York Times.
The pledges given by Joe Biden
On a purely political level, his defection undoubtedly undermines the credit of Joe Biden, at a time when he maintains the suspense over a new presidential candidacy in 2024. However, it is not for lack of having given pledges to Kyrsten Sinema, with whom the president had many conversations, and whom he had invited a year ago to speak on the lawns of the White House to celebrate the passage of a gigantic infrastructure program.
Again on Tuesday, December 6, while visiting a future factory in Arizona, Joe Biden had sung the praises of the senator, a “formidable defender of the people of Arizona and a leader on many key issues for this State”. Kyrsten Sinema’s decision to leave Joe Biden’s party is a risky personal bet: her term as a senator expires in 2024 and the Democrats will be tempted to present another candidate against her.
As observed the New York Times, switching parties is not uncommon in the Senate when lawmakers see a political advantage in making this decision. After losing in a 2006 Democratic primary, Connecticut Senator Joseph I. Lieberman ran and won as an independent, but continued to form a caucus – a small group of elected officials meeting informally – with Democrats. Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter left the Republican Party in 2009, after joining Democrats to support some Obama administration initiatives, but was then defeated in a Democratic primary.