For those that care about protecting the rights of the Senate Minority
From Politico this afternoon:
From Politico this afternoon:
| SINEMA’S SURPRISE — The White House legislative affairs team woke up this morning to some unwelcome news from Sen. KYRSTEN SINEMA: At noon, the Arizona Democrat would make a floor speech doubling down against eliminating the filibuster for voting rights — right before President JOE BIDEN’s planned arrival at the Capitol for a private lunch with Senate Dems to rally support for the proposal. The call, which we first reported this morning , sent Biden aides and Hill Democratic leaders into a tailspin, according to a source close to the White House. Their scripted kabuki theater would now have a new and unplanned scene from a player who has been very deliberate about when she speaks up — and would likely upstage the president’s own appearance on the Hill. On the floor, Sinema delivered an impassioned address blaming both parties for the “spiraling division” in the country caused by “wild reversals” in policy. “Nearly every party-line response to the problems we face in this body — every partisan action taken to protect a cherished value — has led us to more division, not less,” she said. Trying to thread the needle, Sinema said that while she ultimately supports the passage of Democrats’ voting rights bills, she “will not support separate actions that worsen the underlying disease of division” by changing Senate rules to pass the legislation with a simple majority vote. A 42-second clip from this section of the speech She also voiced her disappointment that there wasn’t more Republican support for the bills, and lamented a lack of “serious effort on the part of Democratic leaders to sit down with the other party and forge common ground on these issues.” (Though, as Burgess Everett notes, “Dem leaders gave [JOE] MANCHIN lots of time … to round up GOP votes on this, and they ended up with one [LISA] MURKOWSKI vote for [the] John Lewis bill. Republicans talked to Manchin, but made the decision to not engage on these bills … because they oppose them.”) How it’s playing: — Senate Minority Leader MITCH MCCONNELL praised Sinema’s speech as a “conspicuous act of political courage.” — Rep. RUBEN GALLEGO (D-Ariz.), who has been floated as a potential primary challenger to Sinema, called her out by name on the House floor: “Today, the House showed where it stands: We won’t shrink from protecting our democracy and the voting rights of all Americans. It’s past time for the U.S. Senate — and Sen. Sinema — to do the same.” Shortly after 1 p.m., Biden arrived at the Russell Senate Office Building, walked into the third-floor Kennedy Caucus Room and was greeted with applause. But there was no mistaking what was transpiring. “Sinema is having Joe Biden for lunch,” one Hill aide quipped to Playbook. |
