Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema moments that made headlines

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, the Arizona Democrat who single-handedly thwarted her party’s longtime goal of raising taxes on wealthy investors, received nearly $1 million over the past year from private equity professionals, hedge fund managers and venture capitalists whose taxes would have increased under the plan.

For years, Democrats have promised to raise taxes on such investors, who pay a significantly lower rate on their earnings than ordinary workers. But just as they closed in on that goal last week, Sinema forced a series of changes to her party’s $740 billion election-year spending package, eliminating a proposed “carried interest” tax increase on private equity earnings while securing a $35 billion exemption that will spare much of the industry from a separate tax increase other huge corporations now have to pay.

The bill, with Sinema’s alterations intact, was given final approval by Congress on Friday and is expected to be signed by President Joe Biden next week.

Sinema has long aligned herself with the interests of private equity, hedge funds and venture capital, helping her net at least $1.5 million in campaign contributions since she was elected to the House a decade ago. But the $983,000 she has collected since last summer more than doubled what the industry donated to her during all of her preceding years in Congress combined, according to an Associated Press review of campaign finances disclosures.

The donations, which make Sinema one of the industry’s top beneficiaries in Congress, serve a reminder of the way that high-power lobbying campaigns can have dramatic implications for the way legislation is crafted. They also highlight a degree of political risk for Sinema, whose unapologetic defense of the industry’s favorable tax treatment is viewed by many in her party as indefensible.

“From their vantage point, it’s a million dollars very well spent,” said Dean Baker, a senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a liberal-leaning think tank. “It’s pretty rare you see this direct of a return on your investment. So I guess I would congratulate them.”

Sinema’s office declined to make her available for an interview. Hannah Hurley, a Sinema spokesperson, acknowledged the senator shares some of the industry’s views on taxation, but rebuffed any suggestion that the donations influenced her thinking.

“Senator Sinema makes every decision based on one criteria: what’s best for Arizona,” Hurley said in a statement. “She has been clear and consistent for over a year that she will only support tax reforms and revenue options that support Arizona’s economic growth and competitiveness.”

The American Investment Council, a trade group that lobbies on behalf of private equity, also defended their push to defeat the tax provisions.

“Our team worked to ensure that members of Congress from both sides of the aisle understand how private equity directly employs workers and supports small businesses throughout their communities,” Drew Maloney, the organization’s CEO and president, said in a statement.

Sinema’s defense of the tax provisions offer a jarring contrast to her background as a Green Party activist and self-styled “Prada socialist” who once likened accepting campaign cash to “bribery” and later called for “big corporations & the rich to pay their fair share” shortly before launching her first campaign for Congress in 2012.

She’s been far more magnanimous since, praising private equity in 2016 from the House floor for providing “billions of dollars each year to Main Street businesses” and later interning at a private equity mogul’s boutique winery in northern California during the 2020 congressional recess.

The soaring contributions from the industry to Sinema trace back to last summer. That’s when she first made clear that she wouldn’t support a carried interest tax increase, as well as other corporate and business tax hikes, included in an earlier iteration of Biden’s agenda.

During a two-week period in September alone, Sinema collected $47,100 in contributions from 16 high-ranking officials from the private equity firm Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe, records show. Employees and executives of KKR, another private equity behemoth, contributed $44,100 to Sinema during a two-month span in late 2021.

In some cases, the families of private equity managers joined in. David Belluck, a partner at the firm Riverside Partners, gave a $5,800 max-out contribution to Sinema one day in late June. So did three of his college-age kids, with the family collectively donating $23,200, records show.

“I generally support centrist Democrats and her seat is important to keep a Democratic Senate majority,” Belluck said, adding that his family has known Sinema since her election to Congress. “She and I have never discussed private equity taxation.”

The donations from the industry coincide with a $26 million lobbying effort spearheaded by the investment firm Blackstone that culminated on the Senate floor last weekend.

By the time the bill was up for debate during a marathon series of votes, Sinema had already forced Democrats to abandon their carried interest tax increase.

“Senator Sinema said she would not vote for the bill .. unless we took it out,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told reporters last week. “We had no choice.”

But after private equity lobbyists discovered a provision in the bill that would have subjected many of them to a separate 15% corporate minimum tax, they urgently pressed Sinema and other centrist Democrats for changes, according to emails as well as four people with direct knowledge of the matter who requested anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

“Given the breaking nature of this development we need as many offices as possible weighing in with concerns to Leader Schumer’s office,” Blackstone lobbyist Ryan McConaghy wrote in a Saturday afternoon email obtained by the AP, which included proposed language for modifying the bill. “Would you and your boss be willing to raise the alarm on this and express concerns with Schumer and team?”

McConaghy did not respond to a request for comment.

Sinema worked with Republicans on an amendment that stripped the corporate tax increase provisions from the bill, which a handful of vulnerable Democrats also voted for.

“Since she has been in Congress, Kyrsten has consistently supported pro-growth policies that encourage job creation across Arizona. Her tax policy positions and focus on growing Arizona’s economy and competitiveness are longstanding and well known,” Hurley, the Sinema spokesperson, said.

But many in her party disagree. They say the favorable treatment does little to boost the overall economy and argue there’s little compelling evidence to suggest the tax benefits are enjoyed beyond some of the wealthiest investors.

Some of Sinema’s donors make their case.

Blackstone, a significant source of campaign contributions, owns large tracts of real estate in Arizona. The firm was condemned by United Nations experts in 2019 who said Blackstone’s financial model was responsible for a “financialization of housing” that has driven up rents and home costs, “pushing low-income, and increasingly middle-income people from their homes.”

Blackstone employees executives and their family members have given Sinema $44,000 since 2018, records show.

In a statement, Blackstone called the allegations by the UN experts “false and misleading” and said all employee contributions are “strictly personal.” The firm added that it was “incredibly proud of its investments in housing.”

Another major financial services donor is Centerbridge Partners, a New York-based firm that buys up the debt of distressed governments and companies and often uses hardball tactics to extract value. Since 2017, Sinema has collected at least $29,000 from donors associated with the firm, including co-founder Mark Gallogly and his wife, Elizabeth Strickler, records show.

In 2012, Centerbridge Partners purchased Arizona-based restaurant chain P.F. Chang’s for roughly $1 billion. After loading the struggling company up with $675 million of debt, they sold it to another private equity group in 2019, according to Bloomberg News. The company received a $10 million coronavirus aid loan to cover payroll, but shed jobs and closed locations as it struggled with the pandemic.

Centerbridge Partners was also part of a consortium of hedge funds that helped usher in an era of austerity in Puerto Rico after buying up billions of dollars of the island government’s $72 billion debt — and filing legal proceedings to collect. A subsidiary of Centerbridge Partners was among a group of creditors who repeatedly sued one of the U.S. territory’s pension funds. In one 2016 lawsuit, the group of creditors asked a judge to divert money from a Puerto Rican pension fund in order to collect.

A Centerbridge representative could not immediately provide comment Friday.

Liberal activists in Arizona say they plan to make Sinema’s reliance on donations from wealthy investors a campaign issue when she is up for reelection in 2024.

“There are many takes on how to win, but there is no universe in which it is politically smart to fight for favorable tax treatment of the wealthiest people in the country,” said Emily Kirkland, a political consultant who works for progressive candidates. “It’s absolutely going to be a potent issue.”

Political analysts say it’s too soon to tell what impact, if any, a new book about the Biden administration’s first year will have on Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Arizona, who is reportedly quoted in the book as mocking the president.

The book, “This Will Not Pass,” by New York Times reporters Jonathan Martin and Alex Burns, also cites unnamed sources who say Sinema praised Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Gilbert, the leader of the conservative Freedom Caucus, and suggested that other moderate Senate Democrats privately support her.

Sinema’s office said Wednesday that it would not comment on what it called the book’s unsourced rumor. But one analyst said the reports, which have already generated buzz in political circles, amount to just another item on “the pile of things that Democrats are mad at Kyrsten Sinema about.”

“It’s a growing pile and the pile as a whole matters, but whether this particular report makes a substantial difference, it’s still very early,” said Jacob Rubashkin, a reporter and analyst for Inside Elections, who noted she is not up for reelection for another two years.

The excerpts in the book were first reported Wednesday by Axios, which got an advance of the book. A review copy of the book was not immediately available, but a spokesperson for the authors said they stand behind their reporting.

The book also claims that Sinema discouraged Biden from coming to Arizona after signing the American Rescue Plan, a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package approved last March, and asked why she had to wear a mask to the White House when she had been vaccinated, according to the Axios report. It said the book cites an unnamed source close to the president who said Biden was perplexed by Sinema, comparing it to “his difficulty grasping his grandchildren’s use of … TikTok. He wanted to relate, but he just didn’t quite get it.”

Rubashkin said such depictions would not be unexpected about a senator who has been in hot water with fellow Democrats for months over her support for the filibuster, which Republicans have used to block votes on parts of Biden’s agenda in the evenly divided Senate.

The Arizona Democratic Party in January censured Sinema over her refusal to kill the filibuster, and more than 100 Arizona LGBTQ+ leaders sent an open letter to the Human Rights Campaign Wednesday, urging it to pull its donations to Sinema’s campaign.

Sinema has also angered Democrats by her refusal to approve a federal minimum wage increase and her work with Republicans to stall the administration’s Build Back Better plan.

But Jason Rose, a Republican political consultant in Arizona, noted that Sinema’s warm attitude toward Republicans began during her days as a state legislator.

“When she was in the Arizona Legislature (she) forged really interesting relationships with interesting Republicans,” Rose said. “That’s where she started her bipartisanship and the fact that she said nice things about colorful Republicans, isn’t that what we want more of in American politics?”

Neither Rose nor Rubashkin had read the book this week, but had only seen reports on social media and news sites. But Rose said the book’s reported negative comments from White House sources about Sinema could just as likely have been motivated by frustration that the president had been “unable to do what he said he could do … that he could work with the Senate to pass major legislation.”

“In this case, he couldn’t even work with senators of his own party to pass the legislation,” Rose said.

Both Rose and Rubashkin said White House pushback might not be a negative for Sinema, who has carefully cultivated a bipartisan persona. Despite the reported rift with the White House, Sinema was one of more than 30 members of Congress who were there Wednesday to watch Biden sign a bill reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act, and she was back Thursday for the swearing-in of Shalanda Young as the director of the Office of Management and Budget.

“I would imagine that there are people around Sinema who think of that as a positive given how closely she has tried to take up the mantle of the late John McCain,” said Rubashkin, citing the former Republican senator from Arizona.

They both also noted that Sinema is not up for reelection until 2024, making it hard to determine how the book might affect her political career.

“She’s got two more years before she has to face voters, so I’ll be interested to see how she continues to play her hand,” Rubashkin said.

Rose agreed, noting that if Sinema can make it through the Democratic primary she is likely to survive the general election.

“I think Kyrsten Sinema is getting as close to a bulletproof general election candidate as the Democratic Party, or any party could offer in Arizona,” Rose said. “Her challenge, of course, is now the Democratic primary.”

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema points to the angry divisions in our country as one of our top problems, and she’s not wrong.

That’s one of the main points the Arizona Democrat made in a high-profile speech last week announcing her approach to two voting-rights bills in the U.S. Senate. She was right that we need to re-learn how to bridge our differences, not demonize our opponents, and come to compromise solutions.

But her logic fails her in the current context of voting rights bills blocked by the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster.

She’s wrong to think that polarization is what’s causing efforts to limit voting rights. And that makes her wrong in her approach to the filibuster itself, which she is obstinately upholding in its most draconian, impractical form, rather than pushing to change it.

This week, the pressure mounts again on Sinema as the Senate’s majority leader, Sen. Chuck Schumer, tries to push two voting-rights bills through the body divided 50-50, despite unanimous Republican opposition.

One bill, the Freedom to Vote Act, would make Election Day a federal holiday, require at least 15 days of early voting, make mail-in voting mandatory, ban partisan gerrymandering and tighten campaign-finance disclosure requirements, among many changes.

The other, the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, would restore pre-clearance requirements for election changes in some states, among many other changes. Schumer is trying to combine the bills with a third bill in order to facilitate passage.

Democrats nationwide have been hammering Sinema for the potentially contradictory stand she took last week. She says she supports the voting rights bills but opposes a temporary suspension of filibuster rules that would let them pass on a party-line vote, if all Democrats voted yes.

On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Martin Luther King III shamed her and fellow Democratic U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin for placing the filibuster on a higher pedestal than voting rights.

“Senator Manchin, Senator Sinema, members of the Senate, pass the Freedom to Vote John R. Lewis Act now,” he said. “If you can deliver an infrastructure bill for bridges, you can deliver voting rights for America.”

“If you do not, there is no bridge in this nation that can hold the weight of that failure.”

It was a stinging commentary. And it probably hurts Sinema that Emily’s List, the group supporting pro-choice female candidates, announced Tuesday it will no longer support her.

But that pressure probably won’t change anything.

That’s because Sinema has wrongly diagnosed the reasons for changes that may make it harder to vote in various Republican-controlled states, including Arizona.

Local news

Watch now: Sen. Kyrsten Sinema explains why she opposes ending the filibuster

• Office of Kyrsten Sinema

“We must also acknowledge a painful fact,” Sinema said in her speech last week. “The state laws we seek to address are symptoms of a larger, more deeply rooted problem facing our democracy — the divisions themselves, which have hardened in recent years, and have combined with rampant disinformation to push too many Americans away from our basic constitutional values.”

This is wrong. And Sinema indirectly acknowledged that in her speech.

The worst changes in voting laws are not a result of polarization. This isn’t a “both-sides” issue. These changes are an effort to preserve Republican political power, using false claims of election fraud by former President Donald Trump as a justification. It’s about seizing power, not polarization.

This is not to say Democrats are pristine and their bills are perfect. For example, the Freedom to Vote Act would force states to let voters register up to Election Day. That’s a potential major headache for election officials and the political parties and campaigns.

Essentially, with this change, the universe of registered voters would be unknown till after the election. And recorders’ offices would never be able to transition from registering voters to receiving and processing early ballots, as they do now under Arizona’s popular mail-in ballot system.

But more crucial: Sinema’s position in support of the 60-vote filibuster is not creating any compromise on these or other bills. The filibuster is not creating the compromise that Sinema keeps saying it will.

The current filibuster allows any member to use an email to tell the Senate they are blocking a bill, and forces the majority to prove they have the 60 votes to pass it.

Sinema has said for a year that she’s willing to entertain reforms to the filibuster, but she should go beyond openness to reform and push for specific reforms herself. The principle should be that it ought to take effort to block the majority’s will.

Among the possible reforms:

Return to a speaking filibuster, which requires those blocking a bill to speak on the floor, as in the old days, instead of just typing an email.

Require those who want to invoke a filibuster to get 41 votes, instead of requiring those who want to pass a bill to get 60. This puts the onus on those standing in the way of the majority.

Ratchet down the number of votes required to pass a bill. This means requiring maybe 60 for a period of days or weeks, then, say, 57 votes, then 54, etc. It would give time and reason for the minority and majority to compromise.

Simply reduce the number of votes required for a filibuster, from 60 to, say, 57 or 55.

If Sinema would assertively pursue any of these reforms, rather than embracing the current, painless way of blocking majority rule, it would be easier to accept her contradictory position on the voting-rights bills.

Instead she’s offering a false diagnosis of the election-law problem and no solution to the Senate’s minority rule.

Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema moments that made headlines

Sen. Sinema took Wall Street money while killing tax on investors

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, the Arizona Democrat who single-handedly thwarted her party’s longtime goal of raising taxes on wealthy investors, received nearly $1 million over the past year from private equity professionals, hedge fund managers and venture capitalists whose taxes would have increased under the plan.

For years, Democrats have promised to raise taxes on such investors, who pay a significantly lower rate on their earnings than ordinary workers. But just as they closed in on that goal last week, Sinema forced a series of changes to her party’s $740 billion election-year spending package, eliminating a proposed “carried interest” tax increase on private equity earnings while securing a $35 billion exemption that will spare much of the industry from a separate tax increase other huge corporations now have to pay.

The bill, with Sinema’s alterations intact, was given final approval by Congress on Friday and is expected to be signed by President Joe Biden next week.

Sinema has long aligned herself with the interests of private equity, hedge funds and venture capital, helping her net at least $1.5 million in campaign contributions since she was elected to the House a decade ago. But the $983,000 she has collected since last summer more than doubled what the industry donated to her during all of her preceding years in Congress combined, according to an Associated Press review of campaign finances disclosures.

The donations, which make Sinema one of the industry’s top beneficiaries in Congress, serve a reminder of the way that high-power lobbying campaigns can have dramatic implications for the way legislation is crafted. They also highlight a degree of political risk for Sinema, whose unapologetic defense of the industry’s favorable tax treatment is viewed by many in her party as indefensible.

“From their vantage point, it’s a million dollars very well spent,” said Dean Baker, a senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a liberal-leaning think tank. “It’s pretty rare you see this direct of a return on your investment. So I guess I would congratulate them.”

Sinema’s office declined to make her available for an interview. Hannah Hurley, a Sinema spokesperson, acknowledged the senator shares some of the industry’s views on taxation, but rebuffed any suggestion that the donations influenced her thinking.

“Senator Sinema makes every decision based on one criteria: what’s best for Arizona,” Hurley said in a statement. “She has been clear and consistent for over a year that she will only support tax reforms and revenue options that support Arizona’s economic growth and competitiveness.”

The American Investment Council, a trade group that lobbies on behalf of private equity, also defended their push to defeat the tax provisions.

“Our team worked to ensure that members of Congress from both sides of the aisle understand how private equity directly employs workers and supports small businesses throughout their communities,” Drew Maloney, the organization’s CEO and president, said in a statement.

Sinema’s defense of the tax provisions offer a jarring contrast to her background as a Green Party activist and self-styled “Prada socialist” who once likened accepting campaign cash to “bribery” and later called for “big corporations & the rich to pay their fair share” shortly before launching her first campaign for Congress in 2012.

She’s been far more magnanimous since, praising private equity in 2016 from the House floor for providing “billions of dollars each year to Main Street businesses” and later interning at a private equity mogul’s boutique winery in northern California during the 2020 congressional recess.

The soaring contributions from the industry to Sinema trace back to last summer. That’s when she first made clear that she wouldn’t support a carried interest tax increase, as well as other corporate and business tax hikes, included in an earlier iteration of Biden’s agenda.

During a two-week period in September alone, Sinema collected $47,100 in contributions from 16 high-ranking officials from the private equity firm Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe, records show. Employees and executives of KKR, another private equity behemoth, contributed $44,100 to Sinema during a two-month span in late 2021.

In some cases, the families of private equity managers joined in. David Belluck, a partner at the firm Riverside Partners, gave a $5,800 max-out contribution to Sinema one day in late June. So did three of his college-age kids, with the family collectively donating $23,200, records show.

“I generally support centrist Democrats and her seat is important to keep a Democratic Senate majority,” Belluck said, adding that his family has known Sinema since her election to Congress. “She and I have never discussed private equity taxation.”

The donations from the industry coincide with a $26 million lobbying effort spearheaded by the investment firm Blackstone that culminated on the Senate floor last weekend.

By the time the bill was up for debate during a marathon series of votes, Sinema had already forced Democrats to abandon their carried interest tax increase.

“Senator Sinema said she would not vote for the bill .. unless we took it out,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told reporters last week. “We had no choice.”

But after private equity lobbyists discovered a provision in the bill that would have subjected many of them to a separate 15% corporate minimum tax, they urgently pressed Sinema and other centrist Democrats for changes, according to emails as well as four people with direct knowledge of the matter who requested anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

“Given the breaking nature of this development we need as many offices as possible weighing in with concerns to Leader Schumer’s office,” Blackstone lobbyist Ryan McConaghy wrote in a Saturday afternoon email obtained by the AP, which included proposed language for modifying the bill. “Would you and your boss be willing to raise the alarm on this and express concerns with Schumer and team?”

McConaghy did not respond to a request for comment.

Sinema worked with Republicans on an amendment that stripped the corporate tax increase provisions from the bill, which a handful of vulnerable Democrats also voted for.

“Since she has been in Congress, Kyrsten has consistently supported pro-growth policies that encourage job creation across Arizona. Her tax policy positions and focus on growing Arizona’s economy and competitiveness are longstanding and well known,” Hurley, the Sinema spokesperson, said.

But many in her party disagree. They say the favorable treatment does little to boost the overall economy and argue there’s little compelling evidence to suggest the tax benefits are enjoyed beyond some of the wealthiest investors.

Some of Sinema’s donors make their case.

Blackstone, a significant source of campaign contributions, owns large tracts of real estate in Arizona. The firm was condemned by United Nations experts in 2019 who said Blackstone’s financial model was responsible for a “financialization of housing” that has driven up rents and home costs, “pushing low-income, and increasingly middle-income people from their homes.”

Blackstone employees executives and their family members have given Sinema $44,000 since 2018, records show.

In a statement, Blackstone called the allegations by the UN experts “false and misleading” and said all employee contributions are “strictly personal.” The firm added that it was “incredibly proud of its investments in housing.”

Another major financial services donor is Centerbridge Partners, a New York-based firm that buys up the debt of distressed governments and companies and often uses hardball tactics to extract value. Since 2017, Sinema has collected at least $29,000 from donors associated with the firm, including co-founder Mark Gallogly and his wife, Elizabeth Strickler, records show.

In 2012, Centerbridge Partners purchased Arizona-based restaurant chain P.F. Chang’s for roughly $1 billion. After loading the struggling company up with $675 million of debt, they sold it to another private equity group in 2019, according to Bloomberg News. The company received a $10 million coronavirus aid loan to cover payroll, but shed jobs and closed locations as it struggled with the pandemic.

Centerbridge Partners was also part of a consortium of hedge funds that helped usher in an era of austerity in Puerto Rico after buying up billions of dollars of the island government’s $72 billion debt — and filing legal proceedings to collect. A subsidiary of Centerbridge Partners was among a group of creditors who repeatedly sued one of the U.S. territory’s pension funds. In one 2016 lawsuit, the group of creditors asked a judge to divert money from a Puerto Rican pension fund in order to collect.

A Centerbridge representative could not immediately provide comment Friday.

Liberal activists in Arizona say they plan to make Sinema’s reliance on donations from wealthy investors a campaign issue when she is up for reelection in 2024.

“There are many takes on how to win, but there is no universe in which it is politically smart to fight for favorable tax treatment of the wealthiest people in the country,” said Emily Kirkland, a political consultant who works for progressive candidates. “It’s absolutely going to be a potent issue.”

Sinema cited in new book, but analysts wonder what impact it will have

Political analysts say it’s too soon to tell what impact, if any, a new book about the Biden administration’s first year will have on Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Arizona, who is reportedly quoted in the book as mocking the president.

The book, “This Will Not Pass,” by New York Times reporters Jonathan Martin and Alex Burns, also cites unnamed sources who say Sinema praised Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Gilbert, the leader of the conservative Freedom Caucus, and suggested that other moderate Senate Democrats privately support her.

Sinema’s office said Wednesday that it would not comment on what it called the book’s unsourced rumor. But one analyst said the reports, which have already generated buzz in political circles, amount to just another item on “the pile of things that Democrats are mad at Kyrsten Sinema about.”

“It’s a growing pile and the pile as a whole matters, but whether this particular report makes a substantial difference, it’s still very early,” said Jacob Rubashkin, a reporter and analyst for Inside Elections, who noted she is not up for reelection for another two years.

The excerpts in the book were first reported Wednesday by Axios, which got an advance of the book. A review copy of the book was not immediately available, but a spokesperson for the authors said they stand behind their reporting.

The book also claims that Sinema discouraged Biden from coming to Arizona after signing the American Rescue Plan, a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package approved last March, and asked why she had to wear a mask to the White House when she had been vaccinated, according to the Axios report. It said the book cites an unnamed source close to the president who said Biden was perplexed by Sinema, comparing it to “his difficulty grasping his grandchildren’s use of … TikTok. He wanted to relate, but he just didn’t quite get it.”

Rubashkin said such depictions would not be unexpected about a senator who has been in hot water with fellow Democrats for months over her support for the filibuster, which Republicans have used to block votes on parts of Biden’s agenda in the evenly divided Senate.

The Arizona Democratic Party in January censured Sinema over her refusal to kill the filibuster, and more than 100 Arizona LGBTQ+ leaders sent an open letter to the Human Rights Campaign Wednesday, urging it to pull its donations to Sinema’s campaign.

Sinema has also angered Democrats by her refusal to approve a federal minimum wage increase and her work with Republicans to stall the administration’s Build Back Better plan.

But Jason Rose, a Republican political consultant in Arizona, noted that Sinema’s warm attitude toward Republicans began during her days as a state legislator.

“When she was in the Arizona Legislature (she) forged really interesting relationships with interesting Republicans,” Rose said. “That’s where she started her bipartisanship and the fact that she said nice things about colorful Republicans, isn’t that what we want more of in American politics?”

Neither Rose nor Rubashkin had read the book this week, but had only seen reports on social media and news sites. But Rose said the book’s reported negative comments from White House sources about Sinema could just as likely have been motivated by frustration that the president had been “unable to do what he said he could do … that he could work with the Senate to pass major legislation.”

“In this case, he couldn’t even work with senators of his own party to pass the legislation,” Rose said.

Both Rose and Rubashkin said White House pushback might not be a negative for Sinema, who has carefully cultivated a bipartisan persona. Despite the reported rift with the White House, Sinema was one of more than 30 members of Congress who were there Wednesday to watch Biden sign a bill reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act, and she was back Thursday for the swearing-in of Shalanda Young as the director of the Office of Management and Budget.

“I would imagine that there are people around Sinema who think of that as a positive given how closely she has tried to take up the mantle of the late John McCain,” said Rubashkin, citing the former Republican senator from Arizona.

They both also noted that Sinema is not up for reelection until 2024, making it hard to determine how the book might affect her political career.

“She’s got two more years before she has to face voters, so I’ll be interested to see how she continues to play her hand,” Rubashkin said.

Rose agreed, noting that if Sinema can make it through the Democratic primary she is likely to survive the general election.

“I think Kyrsten Sinema is getting as close to a bulletproof general election candidate as the Democratic Party, or any party could offer in Arizona,” Rose said. “Her challenge, of course, is now the Democratic primary.”

Tim Steller's opinion: Sinema misdiagnoses election problem, needs to push for solution

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema points to the angry divisions in our country as one of our top problems, and she’s not wrong.

That’s one of the main points the Arizona Democrat made in a high-profile speech last week announcing her approach to two voting-rights bills in the U.S. Senate. She was right that we need to re-learn how to bridge our differences, not demonize our opponents, and come to compromise solutions.

But her logic fails her in the current context of voting rights bills blocked by the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster.

She’s wrong to think that polarization is what’s causing efforts to limit voting rights. And that makes her wrong in her approach to the filibuster itself, which she is obstinately upholding in its most draconian, impractical form, rather than pushing to change it.

This week, the pressure mounts again on Sinema as the Senate’s majority leader, Sen. Chuck Schumer, tries to push two voting-rights bills through the body divided 50-50, despite unanimous Republican opposition.

One bill, the Freedom to Vote Act, would make Election Day a federal holiday, require at least 15 days of early voting, make mail-in voting mandatory, ban partisan gerrymandering and tighten campaign-finance disclosure requirements, among many changes.

The other, the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, would restore pre-clearance requirements for election changes in some states, among many other changes. Schumer is trying to combine the bills with a third bill in order to facilitate passage.

Democrats nationwide have been hammering Sinema for the potentially contradictory stand she took last week. She says she supports the voting rights bills but opposes a temporary suspension of filibuster rules that would let them pass on a party-line vote, if all Democrats voted yes.

On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Martin Luther King III shamed her and fellow Democratic U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin for placing the filibuster on a higher pedestal than voting rights.

“Senator Manchin, Senator Sinema, members of the Senate, pass the Freedom to Vote John R. Lewis Act now,” he said. “If you can deliver an infrastructure bill for bridges, you can deliver voting rights for America.”

“If you do not, there is no bridge in this nation that can hold the weight of that failure.”

It was a stinging commentary. And it probably hurts Sinema that Emily’s List, the group supporting pro-choice female candidates, announced Tuesday it will no longer support her.

But that pressure probably won’t change anything.

That’s because Sinema has wrongly diagnosed the reasons for changes that may make it harder to vote in various Republican-controlled states, including Arizona.

Local news

Watch now: Sen. Kyrsten Sinema explains why she opposes ending the filibuster

• Office of Kyrsten Sinema

“We must also acknowledge a painful fact,” Sinema said in her speech last week. “The state laws we seek to address are symptoms of a larger, more deeply rooted problem facing our democracy — the divisions themselves, which have hardened in recent years, and have combined with rampant disinformation to push too many Americans away from our basic constitutional values.”

This is wrong. And Sinema indirectly acknowledged that in her speech.

The worst changes in voting laws are not a result of polarization. This isn’t a “both-sides” issue. These changes are an effort to preserve Republican political power, using false claims of election fraud by former President Donald Trump as a justification. It’s about seizing power, not polarization.

This is not to say Democrats are pristine and their bills are perfect. For example, the Freedom to Vote Act would force states to let voters register up to Election Day. That’s a potential major headache for election officials and the political parties and campaigns.

Essentially, with this change, the universe of registered voters would be unknown till after the election. And recorders’ offices would never be able to transition from registering voters to receiving and processing early ballots, as they do now under Arizona’s popular mail-in ballot system.

But more crucial: Sinema’s position in support of the 60-vote filibuster is not creating any compromise on these or other bills. The filibuster is not creating the compromise that Sinema keeps saying it will.

The current filibuster allows any member to use an email to tell the Senate they are blocking a bill, and forces the majority to prove they have the 60 votes to pass it.

Sinema has said for a year that she’s willing to entertain reforms to the filibuster, but she should go beyond openness to reform and push for specific reforms herself. The principle should be that it ought to take effort to block the majority’s will.

Among the possible reforms:

Return to a speaking filibuster, which requires those blocking a bill to speak on the floor, as in the old days, instead of just typing an email.

Require those who want to invoke a filibuster to get 41 votes, instead of requiring those who want to pass a bill to get 60. This puts the onus on those standing in the way of the majority.

Ratchet down the number of votes required to pass a bill. This means requiring maybe 60 for a period of days or weeks, then, say, 57 votes, then 54, etc. It would give time and reason for the minority and majority to compromise.

Simply reduce the number of votes required for a filibuster, from 60 to, say, 57 or 55.

If Sinema would assertively pursue any of these reforms, rather than embracing the current, painless way of blocking majority rule, it would be easier to accept her contradictory position on the voting-rights bills.

Instead she’s offering a false diagnosis of the election-law problem and no solution to the Senate’s minority rule.

Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema moments that made headlines

Sen. Sinema took Wall Street money while killing tax on investors

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, the Arizona Democrat who single-handedly thwarted her party’s longtime goal of raising taxes on wealthy investors, received nearly $1 million over the past year from private equity professionals, hedge fund managers and venture capitalists whose taxes would have increased under the plan.

For years, Democrats have promised to raise taxes on such investors, who pay a significantly lower rate on their earnings than ordinary workers. But just as they closed in on that goal last week, Sinema forced a series of changes to her party’s $740 billion election-year spending package, eliminating a proposed “carried interest” tax increase on private equity earnings while securing a $35 billion exemption that will spare much of the industry from a separate tax increase other huge corporations now have to pay.

The bill, with Sinema’s alterations intact, was given final approval by Congress on Friday and is expected to be signed by President Joe Biden next week.

Sinema has long aligned herself with the interests of private equity, hedge funds and venture capital, helping her net at least $1.5 million in campaign contributions since she was elected to the House a decade ago. But the $983,000 she has collected since last summer more than doubled what the industry donated to her during all of her preceding years in Congress combined, according to an Associated Press review of campaign finances disclosures.

The donations, which make Sinema one of the industry’s top beneficiaries in Congress, serve a reminder of the way that high-power lobbying campaigns can have dramatic implications for the way legislation is crafted. They also highlight a degree of political risk for Sinema, whose unapologetic defense of the industry’s favorable tax treatment is viewed by many in her party as indefensible.

“From their vantage point, it’s a million dollars very well spent,” said Dean Baker, a senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a liberal-leaning think tank. “It’s pretty rare you see this direct of a return on your investment. So I guess I would congratulate them.”

Sinema’s office declined to make her available for an interview. Hannah Hurley, a Sinema spokesperson, acknowledged the senator shares some of the industry’s views on taxation, but rebuffed any suggestion that the donations influenced her thinking.

“Senator Sinema makes every decision based on one criteria: what’s best for Arizona,” Hurley said in a statement. “She has been clear and consistent for over a year that she will only support tax reforms and revenue options that support Arizona’s economic growth and competitiveness.”

The American Investment Council, a trade group that lobbies on behalf of private equity, also defended their push to defeat the tax provisions.

“Our team worked to ensure that members of Congress from both sides of the aisle understand how private equity directly employs workers and supports small businesses throughout their communities,” Drew Maloney, the organization’s CEO and president, said in a statement.

Sinema’s defense of the tax provisions offer a jarring contrast to her background as a Green Party activist and self-styled “Prada socialist” who once likened accepting campaign cash to “bribery” and later called for “big corporations & the rich to pay their fair share” shortly before launching her first campaign for Congress in 2012.

She’s been far more magnanimous since, praising private equity in 2016 from the House floor for providing “billions of dollars each year to Main Street businesses” and later interning at a private equity mogul’s boutique winery in northern California during the 2020 congressional recess.

The soaring contributions from the industry to Sinema trace back to last summer. That’s when she first made clear that she wouldn’t support a carried interest tax increase, as well as other corporate and business tax hikes, included in an earlier iteration of Biden’s agenda.

During a two-week period in September alone, Sinema collected $47,100 in contributions from 16 high-ranking officials from the private equity firm Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe, records show. Employees and executives of KKR, another private equity behemoth, contributed $44,100 to Sinema during a two-month span in late 2021.

In some cases, the families of private equity managers joined in. David Belluck, a partner at the firm Riverside Partners, gave a $5,800 max-out contribution to Sinema one day in late June. So did three of his college-age kids, with the family collectively donating $23,200, records show.

“I generally support centrist Democrats and her seat is important to keep a Democratic Senate majority,” Belluck said, adding that his family has known Sinema since her election to Congress. “She and I have never discussed private equity taxation.”

The donations from the industry coincide with a $26 million lobbying effort spearheaded by the investment firm Blackstone that culminated on the Senate floor last weekend.

By the time the bill was up for debate during a marathon series of votes, Sinema had already forced Democrats to abandon their carried interest tax increase.

“Senator Sinema said she would not vote for the bill .. unless we took it out,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told reporters last week. “We had no choice.”

But after private equity lobbyists discovered a provision in the bill that would have subjected many of them to a separate 15% corporate minimum tax, they urgently pressed Sinema and other centrist Democrats for changes, according to emails as well as four people with direct knowledge of the matter who requested anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

“Given the breaking nature of this development we need as many offices as possible weighing in with concerns to Leader Schumer’s office,” Blackstone lobbyist Ryan McConaghy wrote in a Saturday afternoon email obtained by the AP, which included proposed language for modifying the bill. “Would you and your boss be willing to raise the alarm on this and express concerns with Schumer and team?”

McConaghy did not respond to a request for comment.

Sinema worked with Republicans on an amendment that stripped the corporate tax increase provisions from the bill, which a handful of vulnerable Democrats also voted for.

“Since she has been in Congress, Kyrsten has consistently supported pro-growth policies that encourage job creation across Arizona. Her tax policy positions and focus on growing Arizona’s economy and competitiveness are longstanding and well known,” Hurley, the Sinema spokesperson, said.

But many in her party disagree. They say the favorable treatment does little to boost the overall economy and argue there’s little compelling evidence to suggest the tax benefits are enjoyed beyond some of the wealthiest investors.

Some of Sinema’s donors make their case.

Blackstone, a significant source of campaign contributions, owns large tracts of real estate in Arizona. The firm was condemned by United Nations experts in 2019 who said Blackstone’s financial model was responsible for a “financialization of housing” that has driven up rents and home costs, “pushing low-income, and increasingly middle-income people from their homes.”

Blackstone employees executives and their family members have given Sinema $44,000 since 2018, records show.

In a statement, Blackstone called the allegations by the UN experts “false and misleading” and said all employee contributions are “strictly personal.” The firm added that it was “incredibly proud of its investments in housing.”

Another major financial services donor is Centerbridge Partners, a New York-based firm that buys up the debt of distressed governments and companies and often uses hardball tactics to extract value. Since 2017, Sinema has collected at least $29,000 from donors associated with the firm, including co-founder Mark Gallogly and his wife, Elizabeth Strickler, records show.

In 2012, Centerbridge Partners purchased Arizona-based restaurant chain P.F. Chang’s for roughly $1 billion. After loading the struggling company up with $675 million of debt, they sold it to another private equity group in 2019, according to Bloomberg News. The company received a $10 million coronavirus aid loan to cover payroll, but shed jobs and closed locations as it struggled with the pandemic.

Centerbridge Partners was also part of a consortium of hedge funds that helped usher in an era of austerity in Puerto Rico after buying up billions of dollars of the island government’s $72 billion debt — and filing legal proceedings to collect. A subsidiary of Centerbridge Partners was among a group of creditors who repeatedly sued one of the U.S. territory’s pension funds. In one 2016 lawsuit, the group of creditors asked a judge to divert money from a Puerto Rican pension fund in order to collect.

A Centerbridge representative could not immediately provide comment Friday.

Liberal activists in Arizona say they plan to make Sinema’s reliance on donations from wealthy investors a campaign issue when she is up for reelection in 2024.

“There are many takes on how to win, but there is no universe in which it is politically smart to fight for favorable tax treatment of the wealthiest people in the country,” said Emily Kirkland, a political consultant who works for progressive candidates. “It’s absolutely going to be a potent issue.”

Sinema cited in new book, but analysts wonder what impact it will have

Political analysts say it’s too soon to tell what impact, if any, a new book about the Biden administration’s first year will have on Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Arizona, who is reportedly quoted in the book as mocking the president.

The book, “This Will Not Pass,” by New York Times reporters Jonathan Martin and Alex Burns, also cites unnamed sources who say Sinema praised Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Gilbert, the leader of the conservative Freedom Caucus, and suggested that other moderate Senate Democrats privately support her.

Sinema’s office said Wednesday that it would not comment on what it called the book’s unsourced rumor. But one analyst said the reports, which have already generated buzz in political circles, amount to just another item on “the pile of things that Democrats are mad at Kyrsten Sinema about.”

“It’s a growing pile and the pile as a whole matters, but whether this particular report makes a substantial difference, it’s still very early,” said Jacob Rubashkin, a reporter and analyst for Inside Elections, who noted she is not up for reelection for another two years.

The excerpts in the book were first reported Wednesday by Axios, which got an advance of the book. A review copy of the book was not immediately available, but a spokesperson for the authors said they stand behind their reporting.

The book also claims that Sinema discouraged Biden from coming to Arizona after signing the American Rescue Plan, a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package approved last March, and asked why she had to wear a mask to the White House when she had been vaccinated, according to the Axios report. It said the book cites an unnamed source close to the president who said Biden was perplexed by Sinema, comparing it to “his difficulty grasping his grandchildren’s use of … TikTok. He wanted to relate, but he just didn’t quite get it.”

Rubashkin said such depictions would not be unexpected about a senator who has been in hot water with fellow Democrats for months over her support for the filibuster, which Republicans have used to block votes on parts of Biden’s agenda in the evenly divided Senate.

The Arizona Democratic Party in January censured Sinema over her refusal to kill the filibuster, and more than 100 Arizona LGBTQ+ leaders sent an open letter to the Human Rights Campaign Wednesday, urging it to pull its donations to Sinema’s campaign.

Sinema has also angered Democrats by her refusal to approve a federal minimum wage increase and her work with Republicans to stall the administration’s Build Back Better plan.

But Jason Rose, a Republican political consultant in Arizona, noted that Sinema’s warm attitude toward Republicans began during her days as a state legislator.

“When she was in the Arizona Legislature (she) forged really interesting relationships with interesting Republicans,” Rose said. “That’s where she started her bipartisanship and the fact that she said nice things about colorful Republicans, isn’t that what we want more of in American politics?”

Neither Rose nor Rubashkin had read the book this week, but had only seen reports on social media and news sites. But Rose said the book’s reported negative comments from White House sources about Sinema could just as likely have been motivated by frustration that the president had been “unable to do what he said he could do … that he could work with the Senate to pass major legislation.”

“In this case, he couldn’t even work with senators of his own party to pass the legislation,” Rose said.

Both Rose and Rubashkin said White House pushback might not be a negative for Sinema, who has carefully cultivated a bipartisan persona. Despite the reported rift with the White House, Sinema was one of more than 30 members of Congress who were there Wednesday to watch Biden sign a bill reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act, and she was back Thursday for the swearing-in of Shalanda Young as the director of the Office of Management and Budget.

“I would imagine that there are people around Sinema who think of that as a positive given how closely she has tried to take up the mantle of the late John McCain,” said Rubashkin, citing the former Republican senator from Arizona.

They both also noted that Sinema is not up for reelection until 2024, making it hard to determine how the book might affect her political career.

“She’s got two more years before she has to face voters, so I’ll be interested to see how she continues to play her hand,” Rubashkin said.

Rose agreed, noting that if Sinema can make it through the Democratic primary she is likely to survive the general election.

“I think Kyrsten Sinema is getting as close to a bulletproof general election candidate as the Democratic Party, or any party could offer in Arizona,” Rose said. “Her challenge, of course, is now the Democratic primary.”

Tim Steller's opinion: Sinema misdiagnoses election problem, needs to push for solution

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema points to the angry divisions in our country as one of our top problems, and she’s not wrong.

That’s one of the main points the Arizona Democrat made in a high-profile speech last week announcing her approach to two voting-rights bills in the U.S. Senate. She was right that we need to re-learn how to bridge our differences, not demonize our opponents, and come to compromise solutions.

But her logic fails her in the current context of voting rights bills blocked by the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster.

She’s wrong to think that polarization is what’s causing efforts to limit voting rights. And that makes her wrong in her approach to the filibuster itself, which she is obstinately upholding in its most draconian, impractical form, rather than pushing to change it.

This week, the pressure mounts again on Sinema as the Senate’s majority leader, Sen. Chuck Schumer, tries to push two voting-rights bills through the body divided 50-50, despite unanimous Republican opposition.

One bill, the Freedom to Vote Act, would make Election Day a federal holiday, require at least 15 days of early voting, make mail-in voting mandatory, ban partisan gerrymandering and tighten campaign-finance disclosure requirements, among many changes.

The other, the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, would restore pre-clearance requirements for election changes in some states, among many other changes. Schumer is trying to combine the bills with a third bill in order to facilitate passage.

Democrats nationwide have been hammering Sinema for the potentially contradictory stand she took last week. She says she supports the voting rights bills but opposes a temporary suspension of filibuster rules that would let them pass on a party-line vote, if all Democrats voted yes.

On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Martin Luther King III shamed her and fellow Democratic U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin for placing the filibuster on a higher pedestal than voting rights.

“Senator Manchin, Senator Sinema, members of the Senate, pass the Freedom to Vote John R. Lewis Act now,” he said. “If you can deliver an infrastructure bill for bridges, you can deliver voting rights for America.”

“If you do not, there is no bridge in this nation that can hold the weight of that failure.”

It was a stinging commentary. And it probably hurts Sinema that Emily’s List, the group supporting pro-choice female candidates, announced Tuesday it will no longer support her.

But that pressure probably won’t change anything.

That’s because Sinema has wrongly diagnosed the reasons for changes that may make it harder to vote in various Republican-controlled states, including Arizona.

Local news

Watch now: Sen. Kyrsten Sinema explains why she opposes ending the filibuster

• Office of Kyrsten Sinema

“We must also acknowledge a painful fact,” Sinema said in her speech last week. “The state laws we seek to address are symptoms of a larger, more deeply rooted problem facing our democracy — the divisions themselves, which have hardened in recent years, and have combined with rampant disinformation to push too many Americans away from our basic constitutional values.”

This is wrong. And Sinema indirectly acknowledged that in her speech.

The worst changes in voting laws are not a result of polarization. This isn’t a “both-sides” issue. These changes are an effort to preserve Republican political power, using false claims of election fraud by former President Donald Trump as a justification. It’s about seizing power, not polarization.

This is not to say Democrats are pristine and their bills are perfect. For example, the Freedom to Vote Act would force states to let voters register up to Election Day. That’s a potential major headache for election officials and the political parties and campaigns.

Essentially, with this change, the universe of registered voters would be unknown till after the election. And recorders’ offices would never be able to transition from registering voters to receiving and processing early ballots, as they do now under Arizona’s popular mail-in ballot system.

But more crucial: Sinema’s position in support of the 60-vote filibuster is not creating any compromise on these or other bills. The filibuster is not creating the compromise that Sinema keeps saying it will.

The current filibuster allows any member to use an email to tell the Senate they are blocking a bill, and forces the majority to prove they have the 60 votes to pass it.

Sinema has said for a year that she’s willing to entertain reforms to the filibuster, but she should go beyond openness to reform and push for specific reforms herself. The principle should be that it ought to take effort to block the majority’s will.

Among the possible reforms:

Return to a speaking filibuster, which requires those blocking a bill to speak on the floor, as in the old days, instead of just typing an email.

Require those who want to invoke a filibuster to get 41 votes, instead of requiring those who want to pass a bill to get 60. This puts the onus on those standing in the way of the majority.

Ratchet down the number of votes required to pass a bill. This means requiring maybe 60 for a period of days or weeks, then, say, 57 votes, then 54, etc. It would give time and reason for the minority and majority to compromise.

Simply reduce the number of votes required for a filibuster, from 60 to, say, 57 or 55.

If Sinema would assertively pursue any of these reforms, rather than embracing the current, painless way of blocking majority rule, it would be easier to accept her contradictory position on the voting-rights bills.

Instead she’s offering a false diagnosis of the election-law problem and no solution to the Senate’s minority rule.

Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema moments that made headlines

Sen. Sinema took Wall Street money while killing tax on investors

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, the Arizona Democrat who single-handedly thwarted her party’s longtime goal of raising taxes on wealthy investors, received nearly $1 million over the past year from private equity professionals, hedge fund managers and venture capitalists whose taxes would have increased under the plan.

For years, Democrats have promised to raise taxes on such investors, who pay a significantly lower rate on their earnings than ordinary workers. But just as they closed in on that goal last week, Sinema forced a series of changes to her party’s $740 billion election-year spending package, eliminating a proposed “carried interest” tax increase on private equity earnings while securing a $35 billion exemption that will spare much of the industry from a separate tax increase other huge corporations now have to pay.

The bill, with Sinema’s alterations intact, was given final approval by Congress on Friday and is expected to be signed by President Joe Biden next week.

Sinema has long aligned herself with the interests of private equity, hedge funds and venture capital, helping her net at least $1.5 million in campaign contributions since she was elected to the House a decade ago. But the $983,000 she has collected since last summer more than doubled what the industry donated to her during all of her preceding years in Congress combined, according to an Associated Press review of campaign finances disclosures.

The donations, which make Sinema one of the industry’s top beneficiaries in Congress, serve a reminder of the way that high-power lobbying campaigns can have dramatic implications for the way legislation is crafted. They also highlight a degree of political risk for Sinema, whose unapologetic defense of the industry’s favorable tax treatment is viewed by many in her party as indefensible.

“From their vantage point, it’s a million dollars very well spent,” said Dean Baker, a senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a liberal-leaning think tank. “It’s pretty rare you see this direct of a return on your investment. So I guess I would congratulate them.”

Sinema’s office declined to make her available for an interview. Hannah Hurley, a Sinema spokesperson, acknowledged the senator shares some of the industry’s views on taxation, but rebuffed any suggestion that the donations influenced her thinking.

“Senator Sinema makes every decision based on one criteria: what’s best for Arizona,” Hurley said in a statement. “She has been clear and consistent for over a year that she will only support tax reforms and revenue options that support Arizona’s economic growth and competitiveness.”

The American Investment Council, a trade group that lobbies on behalf of private equity, also defended their push to defeat the tax provisions.

“Our team worked to ensure that members of Congress from both sides of the aisle understand how private equity directly employs workers and supports small businesses throughout their communities,” Drew Maloney, the organization’s CEO and president, said in a statement.

Sinema’s defense of the tax provisions offer a jarring contrast to her background as a Green Party activist and self-styled “Prada socialist” who once likened accepting campaign cash to “bribery” and later called for “big corporations & the rich to pay their fair share” shortly before launching her first campaign for Congress in 2012.

She’s been far more magnanimous since, praising private equity in 2016 from the House floor for providing “billions of dollars each year to Main Street businesses” and later interning at a private equity mogul’s boutique winery in northern California during the 2020 congressional recess.

The soaring contributions from the industry to Sinema trace back to last summer. That’s when she first made clear that she wouldn’t support a carried interest tax increase, as well as other corporate and business tax hikes, included in an earlier iteration of Biden’s agenda.

During a two-week period in September alone, Sinema collected $47,100 in contributions from 16 high-ranking officials from the private equity firm Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe, records show. Employees and executives of KKR, another private equity behemoth, contributed $44,100 to Sinema during a two-month span in late 2021.

In some cases, the families of private equity managers joined in. David Belluck, a partner at the firm Riverside Partners, gave a $5,800 max-out contribution to Sinema one day in late June. So did three of his college-age kids, with the family collectively donating $23,200, records show.

“I generally support centrist Democrats and her seat is important to keep a Democratic Senate majority,” Belluck said, adding that his family has known Sinema since her election to Congress. “She and I have never discussed private equity taxation.”

The donations from the industry coincide with a $26 million lobbying effort spearheaded by the investment firm Blackstone that culminated on the Senate floor last weekend.

By the time the bill was up for debate during a marathon series of votes, Sinema had already forced Democrats to abandon their carried interest tax increase.

“Senator Sinema said she would not vote for the bill .. unless we took it out,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told reporters last week. “We had no choice.”

But after private equity lobbyists discovered a provision in the bill that would have subjected many of them to a separate 15% corporate minimum tax, they urgently pressed Sinema and other centrist Democrats for changes, according to emails as well as four people with direct knowledge of the matter who requested anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

“Given the breaking nature of this development we need as many offices as possible weighing in with concerns to Leader Schumer’s office,” Blackstone lobbyist Ryan McConaghy wrote in a Saturday afternoon email obtained by the AP, which included proposed language for modifying the bill. “Would you and your boss be willing to raise the alarm on this and express concerns with Schumer and team?”

McConaghy did not respond to a request for comment.

Sinema worked with Republicans on an amendment that stripped the corporate tax increase provisions from the bill, which a handful of vulnerable Democrats also voted for.

“Since she has been in Congress, Kyrsten has consistently supported pro-growth policies that encourage job creation across Arizona. Her tax policy positions and focus on growing Arizona’s economy and competitiveness are longstanding and well known,” Hurley, the Sinema spokesperson, said.

But many in her party disagree. They say the favorable treatment does little to boost the overall economy and argue there’s little compelling evidence to suggest the tax benefits are enjoyed beyond some of the wealthiest investors.

Some of Sinema’s donors make their case.

Blackstone, a significant source of campaign contributions, owns large tracts of real estate in Arizona. The firm was condemned by United Nations experts in 2019 who said Blackstone’s financial model was responsible for a “financialization of housing” that has driven up rents and home costs, “pushing low-income, and increasingly middle-income people from their homes.”

Blackstone employees executives and their family members have given Sinema $44,000 since 2018, records show.

In a statement, Blackstone called the allegations by the UN experts “false and misleading” and said all employee contributions are “strictly personal.” The firm added that it was “incredibly proud of its investments in housing.”

Another major financial services donor is Centerbridge Partners, a New York-based firm that buys up the debt of distressed governments and companies and often uses hardball tactics to extract value. Since 2017, Sinema has collected at least $29,000 from donors associated with the firm, including co-founder Mark Gallogly and his wife, Elizabeth Strickler, records show.

In 2012, Centerbridge Partners purchased Arizona-based restaurant chain P.F. Chang’s for roughly $1 billion. After loading the struggling company up with $675 million of debt, they sold it to another private equity group in 2019, according to Bloomberg News. The company received a $10 million coronavirus aid loan to cover payroll, but shed jobs and closed locations as it struggled with the pandemic.

Centerbridge Partners was also part of a consortium of hedge funds that helped usher in an era of austerity in Puerto Rico after buying up billions of dollars of the island government’s $72 billion debt — and filing legal proceedings to collect. A subsidiary of Centerbridge Partners was among a group of creditors who repeatedly sued one of the U.S. territory’s pension funds. In one 2016 lawsuit, the group of creditors asked a judge to divert money from a Puerto Rican pension fund in order to collect.

A Centerbridge representative could not immediately provide comment Friday.

Liberal activists in Arizona say they plan to make Sinema’s reliance on donations from wealthy investors a campaign issue when she is up for reelection in 2024.

“There are many takes on how to win, but there is no universe in which it is politically smart to fight for favorable tax treatment of the wealthiest people in the country,” said Emily Kirkland, a political consultant who works for progressive candidates. “It’s absolutely going to be a potent issue.”

Sinema cited in new book, but analysts wonder what impact it will have

Political analysts say it’s too soon to tell what impact, if any, a new book about the Biden administration’s first year will have on Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Arizona, who is reportedly quoted in the book as mocking the president.

The book, “This Will Not Pass,” by New York Times reporters Jonathan Martin and Alex Burns, also cites unnamed sources who say Sinema praised Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Gilbert, the leader of the conservative Freedom Caucus, and suggested that other moderate Senate Democrats privately support her.

Sinema’s office said Wednesday that it would not comment on what it called the book’s unsourced rumor. But one analyst said the reports, which have already generated buzz in political circles, amount to just another item on “the pile of things that Democrats are mad at Kyrsten Sinema about.”

“It’s a growing pile and the pile as a whole matters, but whether this particular report makes a substantial difference, it’s still very early,” said Jacob Rubashkin, a reporter and analyst for Inside Elections, who noted she is not up for reelection for another two years.

The excerpts in the book were first reported Wednesday by Axios, which got an advance of the book. A review copy of the book was not immediately available, but a spokesperson for the authors said they stand behind their reporting.

The book also claims that Sinema discouraged Biden from coming to Arizona after signing the American Rescue Plan, a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package approved last March, and asked why she had to wear a mask to the White House when she had been vaccinated, according to the Axios report. It said the book cites an unnamed source close to the president who said Biden was perplexed by Sinema, comparing it to “his difficulty grasping his grandchildren’s use of … TikTok. He wanted to relate, but he just didn’t quite get it.”

Rubashkin said such depictions would not be unexpected about a senator who has been in hot water with fellow Democrats for months over her support for the filibuster, which Republicans have used to block votes on parts of Biden’s agenda in the evenly divided Senate.

The Arizona Democratic Party in January censured Sinema over her refusal to kill the filibuster, and more than 100 Arizona LGBTQ+ leaders sent an open letter to the Human Rights Campaign Wednesday, urging it to pull its donations to Sinema’s campaign.

Sinema has also angered Democrats by her refusal to approve a federal minimum wage increase and her work with Republicans to stall the administration’s Build Back Better plan.

But Jason Rose, a Republican political consultant in Arizona, noted that Sinema’s warm attitude toward Republicans began during her days as a state legislator.

“When she was in the Arizona Legislature (she) forged really interesting relationships with interesting Republicans,” Rose said. “That’s where she started her bipartisanship and the fact that she said nice things about colorful Republicans, isn’t that what we want more of in American politics?”

Neither Rose nor Rubashkin had read the book this week, but had only seen reports on social media and news sites. But Rose said the book’s reported negative comments from White House sources about Sinema could just as likely have been motivated by frustration that the president had been “unable to do what he said he could do … that he could work with the Senate to pass major legislation.”

“In this case, he couldn’t even work with senators of his own party to pass the legislation,” Rose said.

Both Rose and Rubashkin said White House pushback might not be a negative for Sinema, who has carefully cultivated a bipartisan persona. Despite the reported rift with the White House, Sinema was one of more than 30 members of Congress who were there Wednesday to watch Biden sign a bill reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act, and she was back Thursday for the swearing-in of Shalanda Young as the director of the Office of Management and Budget.

“I would imagine that there are people around Sinema who think of that as a positive given how closely she has tried to take up the mantle of the late John McCain,” said Rubashkin, citing the former Republican senator from Arizona.

They both also noted that Sinema is not up for reelection until 2024, making it hard to determine how the book might affect her political career.

“She’s got two more years before she has to face voters, so I’ll be interested to see how she continues to play her hand,” Rubashkin said.

Rose agreed, noting that if Sinema can make it through the Democratic primary she is likely to survive the general election.

“I think Kyrsten Sinema is getting as close to a bulletproof general election candidate as the Democratic Party, or any party could offer in Arizona,” Rose said. “Her challenge, of course, is now the Democratic primary.”

Tim Steller's opinion: Sinema misdiagnoses election problem, needs to push for solution

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema points to the angry divisions in our country as one of our top problems, and she’s not wrong.

That’s one of the main points the Arizona Democrat made in a high-profile speech last week announcing her approach to two voting-rights bills in the U.S. Senate. She was right that we need to re-learn how to bridge our differences, not demonize our opponents, and come to compromise solutions.

But her logic fails her in the current context of voting rights bills blocked by the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster.

She’s wrong to think that polarization is what’s causing efforts to limit voting rights. And that makes her wrong in her approach to the filibuster itself, which she is obstinately upholding in its most draconian, impractical form, rather than pushing to change it.

This week, the pressure mounts again on Sinema as the Senate’s majority leader, Sen. Chuck Schumer, tries to push two voting-rights bills through the body divided 50-50, despite unanimous Republican opposition.

One bill, the Freedom to Vote Act, would make Election Day a federal holiday, require at least 15 days of early voting, make mail-in voting mandatory, ban partisan gerrymandering and tighten campaign-finance disclosure requirements, among many changes.

The other, the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, would restore pre-clearance requirements for election changes in some states, among many other changes. Schumer is trying to combine the bills with a third bill in order to facilitate passage.

Democrats nationwide have been hammering Sinema for the potentially contradictory stand she took last week. She says she supports the voting rights bills but opposes a temporary suspension of filibuster rules that would let them pass on a party-line vote, if all Democrats voted yes.

On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Martin Luther King III shamed her and fellow Democratic U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin for placing the filibuster on a higher pedestal than voting rights.

“Senator Manchin, Senator Sinema, members of the Senate, pass the Freedom to Vote John R. Lewis Act now,” he said. “If you can deliver an infrastructure bill for bridges, you can deliver voting rights for America.”

“If you do not, there is no bridge in this nation that can hold the weight of that failure.”

It was a stinging commentary. And it probably hurts Sinema that Emily’s List, the group supporting pro-choice female candidates, announced Tuesday it will no longer support her.

But that pressure probably won’t change anything.

That’s because Sinema has wrongly diagnosed the reasons for changes that may make it harder to vote in various Republican-controlled states, including Arizona.

Local news

Watch now: Sen. Kyrsten Sinema explains why she opposes ending the filibuster

• Office of Kyrsten Sinema

“We must also acknowledge a painful fact,” Sinema said in her speech last week. “The state laws we seek to address are symptoms of a larger, more deeply rooted problem facing our democracy — the divisions themselves, which have hardened in recent years, and have combined with rampant disinformation to push too many Americans away from our basic constitutional values.”

This is wrong. And Sinema indirectly acknowledged that in her speech.

The worst changes in voting laws are not a result of polarization. This isn’t a “both-sides” issue. These changes are an effort to preserve Republican political power, using false claims of election fraud by former President Donald Trump as a justification. It’s about seizing power, not polarization.

This is not to say Democrats are pristine and their bills are perfect. For example, the Freedom to Vote Act would force states to let voters register up to Election Day. That’s a potential major headache for election officials and the political parties and campaigns.

Essentially, with this change, the universe of registered voters would be unknown till after the election. And recorders’ offices would never be able to transition from registering voters to receiving and processing early ballots, as they do now under Arizona’s popular mail-in ballot system.

But more crucial: Sinema’s position in support of the 60-vote filibuster is not creating any compromise on these or other bills. The filibuster is not creating the compromise that Sinema keeps saying it will.

The current filibuster allows any member to use an email to tell the Senate they are blocking a bill, and forces the majority to prove they have the 60 votes to pass it.

Sinema has said for a year that she’s willing to entertain reforms to the filibuster, but she should go beyond openness to reform and push for specific reforms herself. The principle should be that it ought to take effort to block the majority’s will.

Among the possible reforms:

Return to a speaking filibuster, which requires those blocking a bill to speak on the floor, as in the old days, instead of just typing an email.

Require those who want to invoke a filibuster to get 41 votes, instead of requiring those who want to pass a bill to get 60. This puts the onus on those standing in the way of the majority.

Ratchet down the number of votes required to pass a bill. This means requiring maybe 60 for a period of days or weeks, then, say, 57 votes, then 54, etc. It would give time and reason for the minority and majority to compromise.

Simply reduce the number of votes required for a filibuster, from 60 to, say, 57 or 55.

If Sinema would assertively pursue any of these reforms, rather than embracing the current, painless way of blocking majority rule, it would be easier to accept her contradictory position on the voting-rights bills.

Instead she’s offering a false diagnosis of the election-law problem and no solution to the Senate’s minority rule.

Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema moments that made headlines

Sen. Sinema took Wall Street money while killing tax on investors

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, the Arizona Democrat who single-handedly thwarted her party’s longtime goal of raising taxes on wealthy investors, received nearly $1 million over the past year from private equity professionals, hedge fund managers and venture capitalists whose taxes would have increased under the plan.

For years, Democrats have promised to raise taxes on such investors, who pay a significantly lower rate on their earnings than ordinary workers. But just as they closed in on that goal last week, Sinema forced a series of changes to her party’s $740 billion election-year spending package, eliminating a proposed “carried interest” tax increase on private equity earnings while securing a $35 billion exemption that will spare much of the industry from a separate tax increase other huge corporations now have to pay.

The bill, with Sinema’s alterations intact, was given final approval by Congress on Friday and is expected to be signed by President Joe Biden next week.

Sinema has long aligned herself with the interests of private equity, hedge funds and venture capital, helping her net at least $1.5 million in campaign contributions since she was elected to the House a decade ago. But the $983,000 she has collected since last summer more than doubled what the industry donated to her during all of her preceding years in Congress combined, according to an Associated Press review of campaign finances disclosures.

The donations, which make Sinema one of the industry’s top beneficiaries in Congress, serve a reminder of the way that high-power lobbying campaigns can have dramatic implications for the way legislation is crafted. They also highlight a degree of political risk for Sinema, whose unapologetic defense of the industry’s favorable tax treatment is viewed by many in her party as indefensible.

“From their vantage point, it’s a million dollars very well spent,” said Dean Baker, a senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a liberal-leaning think tank. “It’s pretty rare you see this direct of a return on your investment. So I guess I would congratulate them.”

Sinema’s office declined to make her available for an interview. Hannah Hurley, a Sinema spokesperson, acknowledged the senator shares some of the industry’s views on taxation, but rebuffed any suggestion that the donations influenced her thinking.

“Senator Sinema makes every decision based on one criteria: what’s best for Arizona,” Hurley said in a statement. “She has been clear and consistent for over a year that she will only support tax reforms and revenue options that support Arizona’s economic growth and competitiveness.”

The American Investment Council, a trade group that lobbies on behalf of private equity, also defended their push to defeat the tax provisions.

“Our team worked to ensure that members of Congress from both sides of the aisle understand how private equity directly employs workers and supports small businesses throughout their communities,” Drew Maloney, the organization’s CEO and president, said in a statement.

Sinema’s defense of the tax provisions offer a jarring contrast to her background as a Green Party activist and self-styled “Prada socialist” who once likened accepting campaign cash to “bribery” and later called for “big corporations & the rich to pay their fair share” shortly before launching her first campaign for Congress in 2012.

She’s been far more magnanimous since, praising private equity in 2016 from the House floor for providing “billions of dollars each year to Main Street businesses” and later interning at a private equity mogul’s boutique winery in northern California during the 2020 congressional recess.

The soaring contributions from the industry to Sinema trace back to last summer. That’s when she first made clear that she wouldn’t support a carried interest tax increase, as well as other corporate and business tax hikes, included in an earlier iteration of Biden’s agenda.

During a two-week period in September alone, Sinema collected $47,100 in contributions from 16 high-ranking officials from the private equity firm Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe, records show. Employees and executives of KKR, another private equity behemoth, contributed $44,100 to Sinema during a two-month span in late 2021.

In some cases, the families of private equity managers joined in. David Belluck, a partner at the firm Riverside Partners, gave a $5,800 max-out contribution to Sinema one day in late June. So did three of his college-age kids, with the family collectively donating $23,200, records show.

“I generally support centrist Democrats and her seat is important to keep a Democratic Senate majority,” Belluck said, adding that his family has known Sinema since her election to Congress. “She and I have never discussed private equity taxation.”

The donations from the industry coincide with a $26 million lobbying effort spearheaded by the investment firm Blackstone that culminated on the Senate floor last weekend.

By the time the bill was up for debate during a marathon series of votes, Sinema had already forced Democrats to abandon their carried interest tax increase.

“Senator Sinema said she would not vote for the bill .. unless we took it out,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told reporters last week. “We had no choice.”

But after private equity lobbyists discovered a provision in the bill that would have subjected many of them to a separate 15% corporate minimum tax, they urgently pressed Sinema and other centrist Democrats for changes, according to emails as well as four people with direct knowledge of the matter who requested anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

“Given the breaking nature of this development we need as many offices as possible weighing in with concerns to Leader Schumer’s office,” Blackstone lobbyist Ryan McConaghy wrote in a Saturday afternoon email obtained by the AP, which included proposed language for modifying the bill. “Would you and your boss be willing to raise the alarm on this and express concerns with Schumer and team?”

McConaghy did not respond to a request for comment.

Sinema worked with Republicans on an amendment that stripped the corporate tax increase provisions from the bill, which a handful of vulnerable Democrats also voted for.

“Since she has been in Congress, Kyrsten has consistently supported pro-growth policies that encourage job creation across Arizona. Her tax policy positions and focus on growing Arizona’s economy and competitiveness are longstanding and well known,” Hurley, the Sinema spokesperson, said.

But many in her party disagree. They say the favorable treatment does little to boost the overall economy and argue there’s little compelling evidence to suggest the tax benefits are enjoyed beyond some of the wealthiest investors.

Some of Sinema’s donors make their case.

Blackstone, a significant source of campaign contributions, owns large tracts of real estate in Arizona. The firm was condemned by United Nations experts in 2019 who said Blackstone’s financial model was responsible for a “financialization of housing” that has driven up rents and home costs, “pushing low-income, and increasingly middle-income people from their homes.”

Blackstone employees executives and their family members have given Sinema $44,000 since 2018, records show.

In a statement, Blackstone called the allegations by the UN experts “false and misleading” and said all employee contributions are “strictly personal.” The firm added that it was “incredibly proud of its investments in housing.”

Another major financial services donor is Centerbridge Partners, a New York-based firm that buys up the debt of distressed governments and companies and often uses hardball tactics to extract value. Since 2017, Sinema has collected at least $29,000 from donors associated with the firm, including co-founder Mark Gallogly and his wife, Elizabeth Strickler, records show.

In 2012, Centerbridge Partners purchased Arizona-based restaurant chain P.F. Chang’s for roughly $1 billion. After loading the struggling company up with $675 million of debt, they sold it to another private equity group in 2019, according to Bloomberg News. The company received a $10 million coronavirus aid loan to cover payroll, but shed jobs and closed locations as it struggled with the pandemic.

Centerbridge Partners was also part of a consortium of hedge funds that helped usher in an era of austerity in Puerto Rico after buying up billions of dollars of the island government’s $72 billion debt — and filing legal proceedings to collect. A subsidiary of Centerbridge Partners was among a group of creditors who repeatedly sued one of the U.S. territory’s pension funds. In one 2016 lawsuit, the group of creditors asked a judge to divert money from a Puerto Rican pension fund in order to collect.

A Centerbridge representative could not immediately provide comment Friday.

Liberal activists in Arizona say they plan to make Sinema’s reliance on donations from wealthy investors a campaign issue when she is up for reelection in 2024.

“There are many takes on how to win, but there is no universe in which it is politically smart to fight for favorable tax treatment of the wealthiest people in the country,” said Emily Kirkland, a political consultant who works for progressive candidates. “It’s absolutely going to be a potent issue.”

Sinema cited in new book, but analysts wonder what impact it will have

Political analysts say it’s too soon to tell what impact, if any, a new book about the Biden administration’s first year will have on Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Arizona, who is reportedly quoted in the book as mocking the president.

The book, “This Will Not Pass,” by New York Times reporters Jonathan Martin and Alex Burns, also cites unnamed sources who say Sinema praised Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Gilbert, the leader of the conservative Freedom Caucus, and suggested that other moderate Senate Democrats privately support her.

Sinema’s office said Wednesday that it would not comment on what it called the book’s unsourced rumor. But one analyst said the reports, which have already generated buzz in political circles, amount to just another item on “the pile of things that Democrats are mad at Kyrsten Sinema about.”

“It’s a growing pile and the pile as a whole matters, but whether this particular report makes a substantial difference, it’s still very early,” said Jacob Rubashkin, a reporter and analyst for Inside Elections, who noted she is not up for reelection for another two years.

The excerpts in the book were first reported Wednesday by Axios, which got an advance of the book. A review copy of the book was not immediately available, but a spokesperson for the authors said they stand behind their reporting.

The book also claims that Sinema discouraged Biden from coming to Arizona after signing the American Rescue Plan, a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package approved last March, and asked why she had to wear a mask to the White House when she had been vaccinated, according to the Axios report. It said the book cites an unnamed source close to the president who said Biden was perplexed by Sinema, comparing it to “his difficulty grasping his grandchildren’s use of … TikTok. He wanted to relate, but he just didn’t quite get it.”

Rubashkin said such depictions would not be unexpected about a senator who has been in hot water with fellow Democrats for months over her support for the filibuster, which Republicans have used to block votes on parts of Biden’s agenda in the evenly divided Senate.

The Arizona Democratic Party in January censured Sinema over her refusal to kill the filibuster, and more than 100 Arizona LGBTQ+ leaders sent an open letter to the Human Rights Campaign Wednesday, urging it to pull its donations to Sinema’s campaign.

Sinema has also angered Democrats by her refusal to approve a federal minimum wage increase and her work with Republicans to stall the administration’s Build Back Better plan.

But Jason Rose, a Republican political consultant in Arizona, noted that Sinema’s warm attitude toward Republicans began during her days as a state legislator.

“When she was in the Arizona Legislature (she) forged really interesting relationships with interesting Republicans,” Rose said. “That’s where she started her bipartisanship and the fact that she said nice things about colorful Republicans, isn’t that what we want more of in American politics?”

Neither Rose nor Rubashkin had read the book this week, but had only seen reports on social media and news sites. But Rose said the book’s reported negative comments from White House sources about Sinema could just as likely have been motivated by frustration that the president had been “unable to do what he said he could do … that he could work with the Senate to pass major legislation.”

“In this case, he couldn’t even work with senators of his own party to pass the legislation,” Rose said.

Both Rose and Rubashkin said White House pushback might not be a negative for Sinema, who has carefully cultivated a bipartisan persona. Despite the reported rift with the White House, Sinema was one of more than 30 members of Congress who were there Wednesday to watch Biden sign a bill reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act, and she was back Thursday for the swearing-in of Shalanda Young as the director of the Office of Management and Budget.

“I would imagine that there are people around Sinema who think of that as a positive given how closely she has tried to take up the mantle of the late John McCain,” said Rubashkin, citing the former Republican senator from Arizona.

They both also noted that Sinema is not up for reelection until 2024, making it hard to determine how the book might affect her political career.

“She’s got two more years before she has to face voters, so I’ll be interested to see how she continues to play her hand,” Rubashkin said.

Rose agreed, noting that if Sinema can make it through the Democratic primary she is likely to survive the general election.

“I think Kyrsten Sinema is getting as close to a bulletproof general election candidate as the Democratic Party, or any party could offer in Arizona,” Rose said. “Her challenge, of course, is now the Democratic primary.”

Tim Steller's opinion: Sinema misdiagnoses election problem, needs to push for solution

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema points to the angry divisions in our country as one of our top problems, and she’s not wrong.

That’s one of the main points the Arizona Democrat made in a high-profile speech last week announcing her approach to two voting-rights bills in the U.S. Senate. She was right that we need to re-learn how to bridge our differences, not demonize our opponents, and come to compromise solutions.

But her logic fails her in the current context of voting rights bills blocked by the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster.

She’s wrong to think that polarization is what’s causing efforts to limit voting rights. And that makes her wrong in her approach to the filibuster itself, which she is obstinately upholding in its most draconian, impractical form, rather than pushing to change it.

This week, the pressure mounts again on Sinema as the Senate’s majority leader, Sen. Chuck Schumer, tries to push two voting-rights bills through the body divided 50-50, despite unanimous Republican opposition.

One bill, the Freedom to Vote Act, would make Election Day a federal holiday, require at least 15 days of early voting, make mail-in voting mandatory, ban partisan gerrymandering and tighten campaign-finance disclosure requirements, among many changes.

The other, the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, would restore pre-clearance requirements for election changes in some states, among many other changes. Schumer is trying to combine the bills with a third bill in order to facilitate passage.

Democrats nationwide have been hammering Sinema for the potentially contradictory stand she took last week. She says she supports the voting rights bills but opposes a temporary suspension of filibuster rules that would let them pass on a party-line vote, if all Democrats voted yes.

On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Martin Luther King III shamed her and fellow Democratic U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin for placing the filibuster on a higher pedestal than voting rights.

“Senator Manchin, Senator Sinema, members of the Senate, pass the Freedom to Vote John R. Lewis Act now,” he said. “If you can deliver an infrastructure bill for bridges, you can deliver voting rights for America.”

“If you do not, there is no bridge in this nation that can hold the weight of that failure.”

It was a stinging commentary. And it probably hurts Sinema that Emily’s List, the group supporting pro-choice female candidates, announced Tuesday it will no longer support her.

But that pressure probably won’t change anything.

That’s because Sinema has wrongly diagnosed the reasons for changes that may make it harder to vote in various Republican-controlled states, including Arizona.

Local news

Watch now: Sen. Kyrsten Sinema explains why she opposes ending the filibuster

• Office of Kyrsten Sinema

“We must also acknowledge a painful fact,” Sinema said in her speech last week. “The state laws we seek to address are symptoms of a larger, more deeply rooted problem facing our democracy — the divisions themselves, which have hardened in recent years, and have combined with rampant disinformation to push too many Americans away from our basic constitutional values.”

This is wrong. And Sinema indirectly acknowledged that in her speech.

The worst changes in voting laws are not a result of polarization. This isn’t a “both-sides” issue. These changes are an effort to preserve Republican political power, using false claims of election fraud by former President Donald Trump as a justification. It’s about seizing power, not polarization.

This is not to say Democrats are pristine and their bills are perfect. For example, the Freedom to Vote Act would force states to let voters register up to Election Day. That’s a potential major headache for election officials and the political parties and campaigns.

Essentially, with this change, the universe of registered voters would be unknown till after the election. And recorders’ offices would never be able to transition from registering voters to receiving and processing early ballots, as they do now under Arizona’s popular mail-in ballot system.

But more crucial: Sinema’s position in support of the 60-vote filibuster is not creating any compromise on these or other bills. The filibuster is not creating the compromise that Sinema keeps saying it will.

The current filibuster allows any member to use an email to tell the Senate they are blocking a bill, and forces the majority to prove they have the 60 votes to pass it.

Sinema has said for a year that she’s willing to entertain reforms to the filibuster, but she should go beyond openness to reform and push for specific reforms herself. The principle should be that it ought to take effort to block the majority’s will.

Among the possible reforms:

Return to a speaking filibuster, which requires those blocking a bill to speak on the floor, as in the old days, instead of just typing an email.

Require those who want to invoke a filibuster to get 41 votes, instead of requiring those who want to pass a bill to get 60. This puts the onus on those standing in the way of the majority.

Ratchet down the number of votes required to pass a bill. This means requiring maybe 60 for a period of days or weeks, then, say, 57 votes, then 54, etc. It would give time and reason for the minority and majority to compromise.

Simply reduce the number of votes required for a filibuster, from 60 to, say, 57 or 55.

If Sinema would assertively pursue any of these reforms, rather than embracing the current, painless way of blocking majority rule, it would be easier to accept her contradictory position on the voting-rights bills.

Instead she’s offering a false diagnosis of the election-law problem and no solution to the Senate’s minority rule.

Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema moments that made headlines

Sen. Sinema took Wall Street money while killing tax on investors

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, the Arizona Democrat who single-handedly thwarted her party’s longtime goal of raising taxes on wealthy investors, received nearly $1 million over the past year from private equity professionals, hedge fund managers and venture capitalists whose taxes would have increased under the plan.

For years, Democrats have promised to raise taxes on such investors, who pay a significantly lower rate on their earnings than ordinary workers. But just as they closed in on that goal last week, Sinema forced a series of changes to her party’s $740 billion election-year spending package, eliminating a proposed “carried interest” tax increase on private equity earnings while securing a $35 billion exemption that will spare much of the industry from a separate tax increase other huge corporations now have to pay.

The bill, with Sinema’s alterations intact, was given final approval by Congress on Friday and is expected to be signed by President Joe Biden next week.

Sinema has long aligned herself with the interests of private equity, hedge funds and venture capital, helping her net at least $1.5 million in campaign contributions since she was elected to the House a decade ago. But the $983,000 she has collected since last summer more than doubled what the industry donated to her during all of her preceding years in Congress combined, according to an Associated Press review of campaign finances disclosures.

The donations, which make Sinema one of the industry’s top beneficiaries in Congress, serve a reminder of the way that high-power lobbying campaigns can have dramatic implications for the way legislation is crafted. They also highlight a degree of political risk for Sinema, whose unapologetic defense of the industry’s favorable tax treatment is viewed by many in her party as indefensible.

“From their vantage point, it’s a million dollars very well spent,” said Dean Baker, a senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a liberal-leaning think tank. “It’s pretty rare you see this direct of a return on your investment. So I guess I would congratulate them.”

Sinema’s office declined to make her available for an interview. Hannah Hurley, a Sinema spokesperson, acknowledged the senator shares some of the industry’s views on taxation, but rebuffed any suggestion that the donations influenced her thinking.

“Senator Sinema makes every decision based on one criteria: what’s best for Arizona,” Hurley said in a statement. “She has been clear and consistent for over a year that she will only support tax reforms and revenue options that support Arizona’s economic growth and competitiveness.”

The American Investment Council, a trade group that lobbies on behalf of private equity, also defended their push to defeat the tax provisions.

“Our team worked to ensure that members of Congress from both sides of the aisle understand how private equity directly employs workers and supports small businesses throughout their communities,” Drew Maloney, the organization’s CEO and president, said in a statement.

Sinema’s defense of the tax provisions offer a jarring contrast to her background as a Green Party activist and self-styled “Prada socialist” who once likened accepting campaign cash to “bribery” and later called for “big corporations & the rich to pay their fair share” shortly before launching her first campaign for Congress in 2012.

She’s been far more magnanimous since, praising private equity in 2016 from the House floor for providing “billions of dollars each year to Main Street businesses” and later interning at a private equity mogul’s boutique winery in northern California during the 2020 congressional recess.

The soaring contributions from the industry to Sinema trace back to last summer. That’s when she first made clear that she wouldn’t support a carried interest tax increase, as well as other corporate and business tax hikes, included in an earlier iteration of Biden’s agenda.

During a two-week period in September alone, Sinema collected $47,100 in contributions from 16 high-ranking officials from the private equity firm Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe, records show. Employees and executives of KKR, another private equity behemoth, contributed $44,100 to Sinema during a two-month span in late 2021.

In some cases, the families of private equity managers joined in. David Belluck, a partner at the firm Riverside Partners, gave a $5,800 max-out contribution to Sinema one day in late June. So did three of his college-age kids, with the family collectively donating $23,200, records show.

“I generally support centrist Democrats and her seat is important to keep a Democratic Senate majority,” Belluck said, adding that his family has known Sinema since her election to Congress. “She and I have never discussed private equity taxation.”

The donations from the industry coincide with a $26 million lobbying effort spearheaded by the investment firm Blackstone that culminated on the Senate floor last weekend.

By the time the bill was up for debate during a marathon series of votes, Sinema had already forced Democrats to abandon their carried interest tax increase.

“Senator Sinema said she would not vote for the bill .. unless we took it out,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told reporters last week. “We had no choice.”

But after private equity lobbyists discovered a provision in the bill that would have subjected many of them to a separate 15% corporate minimum tax, they urgently pressed Sinema and other centrist Democrats for changes, according to emails as well as four people with direct knowledge of the matter who requested anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

“Given the breaking nature of this development we need as many offices as possible weighing in with concerns to Leader Schumer’s office,” Blackstone lobbyist Ryan McConaghy wrote in a Saturday afternoon email obtained by the AP, which included proposed language for modifying the bill. “Would you and your boss be willing to raise the alarm on this and express concerns with Schumer and team?”

McConaghy did not respond to a request for comment.

Sinema worked with Republicans on an amendment that stripped the corporate tax increase provisions from the bill, which a handful of vulnerable Democrats also voted for.

“Since she has been in Congress, Kyrsten has consistently supported pro-growth policies that encourage job creation across Arizona. Her tax policy positions and focus on growing Arizona’s economy and competitiveness are longstanding and well known,” Hurley, the Sinema spokesperson, said.

But many in her party disagree. They say the favorable treatment does little to boost the overall economy and argue there’s little compelling evidence to suggest the tax benefits are enjoyed beyond some of the wealthiest investors.

Some of Sinema’s donors make their case.

Blackstone, a significant source of campaign contributions, owns large tracts of real estate in Arizona. The firm was condemned by United Nations experts in 2019 who said Blackstone’s financial model was responsible for a “financialization of housing” that has driven up rents and home costs, “pushing low-income, and increasingly middle-income people from their homes.”

Blackstone employees executives and their family members have given Sinema $44,000 since 2018, records show.

In a statement, Blackstone called the allegations by the UN experts “false and misleading” and said all employee contributions are “strictly personal.” The firm added that it was “incredibly proud of its investments in housing.”

Another major financial services donor is Centerbridge Partners, a New York-based firm that buys up the debt of distressed governments and companies and often uses hardball tactics to extract value. Since 2017, Sinema has collected at least $29,000 from donors associated with the firm, including co-founder Mark Gallogly and his wife, Elizabeth Strickler, records show.

In 2012, Centerbridge Partners purchased Arizona-based restaurant chain P.F. Chang’s for roughly $1 billion. After loading the struggling company up with $675 million of debt, they sold it to another private equity group in 2019, according to Bloomberg News. The company received a $10 million coronavirus aid loan to cover payroll, but shed jobs and closed locations as it struggled with the pandemic.

Centerbridge Partners was also part of a consortium of hedge funds that helped usher in an era of austerity in Puerto Rico after buying up billions of dollars of the island government’s $72 billion debt — and filing legal proceedings to collect. A subsidiary of Centerbridge Partners was among a group of creditors who repeatedly sued one of the U.S. territory’s pension funds. In one 2016 lawsuit, the group of creditors asked a judge to divert money from a Puerto Rican pension fund in order to collect.

A Centerbridge representative could not immediately provide comment Friday.

Liberal activists in Arizona say they plan to make Sinema’s reliance on donations from wealthy investors a campaign issue when she is up for reelection in 2024.

“There are many takes on how to win, but there is no universe in which it is politically smart to fight for favorable tax treatment of the wealthiest people in the country,” said Emily Kirkland, a political consultant who works for progressive candidates. “It’s absolutely going to be a potent issue.”

Sinema cited in new book, but analysts wonder what impact it will have

Political analysts say it’s too soon to tell what impact, if any, a new book about the Biden administration’s first year will have on Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Arizona, who is reportedly quoted in the book as mocking the president.

The book, “This Will Not Pass,” by New York Times reporters Jonathan Martin and Alex Burns, also cites unnamed sources who say Sinema praised Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Gilbert, the leader of the conservative Freedom Caucus, and suggested that other moderate Senate Democrats privately support her.

Sinema’s office said Wednesday that it would not comment on what it called the book’s unsourced rumor. But one analyst said the reports, which have already generated buzz in political circles, amount to just another item on “the pile of things that Democrats are mad at Kyrsten Sinema about.”

“It’s a growing pile and the pile as a whole matters, but whether this particular report makes a substantial difference, it’s still very early,” said Jacob Rubashkin, a reporter and analyst for Inside Elections, who noted she is not up for reelection for another two years.

The excerpts in the book were first reported Wednesday by Axios, which got an advance of the book. A review copy of the book was not immediately available, but a spokesperson for the authors said they stand behind their reporting.

The book also claims that Sinema discouraged Biden from coming to Arizona after signing the American Rescue Plan, a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package approved last March, and asked why she had to wear a mask to the White House when she had been vaccinated, according to the Axios report. It said the book cites an unnamed source close to the president who said Biden was perplexed by Sinema, comparing it to “his difficulty grasping his grandchildren’s use of … TikTok. He wanted to relate, but he just didn’t quite get it.”

Rubashkin said such depictions would not be unexpected about a senator who has been in hot water with fellow Democrats for months over her support for the filibuster, which Republicans have used to block votes on parts of Biden’s agenda in the evenly divided Senate.

The Arizona Democratic Party in January censured Sinema over her refusal to kill the filibuster, and more than 100 Arizona LGBTQ+ leaders sent an open letter to the Human Rights Campaign Wednesday, urging it to pull its donations to Sinema’s campaign.

Sinema has also angered Democrats by her refusal to approve a federal minimum wage increase and her work with Republicans to stall the administration’s Build Back Better plan.

But Jason Rose, a Republican political consultant in Arizona, noted that Sinema’s warm attitude toward Republicans began during her days as a state legislator.

“When she was in the Arizona Legislature (she) forged really interesting relationships with interesting Republicans,” Rose said. “That’s where she started her bipartisanship and the fact that she said nice things about colorful Republicans, isn’t that what we want more of in American politics?”

Neither Rose nor Rubashkin had read the book this week, but had only seen reports on social media and news sites. But Rose said the book’s reported negative comments from White House sources about Sinema could just as likely have been motivated by frustration that the president had been “unable to do what he said he could do … that he could work with the Senate to pass major legislation.”

“In this case, he couldn’t even work with senators of his own party to pass the legislation,” Rose said.

Both Rose and Rubashkin said White House pushback might not be a negative for Sinema, who has carefully cultivated a bipartisan persona. Despite the reported rift with the White House, Sinema was one of more than 30 members of Congress who were there Wednesday to watch Biden sign a bill reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act, and she was back Thursday for the swearing-in of Shalanda Young as the director of the Office of Management and Budget.

“I would imagine that there are people around Sinema who think of that as a positive given how closely she has tried to take up the mantle of the late John McCain,” said Rubashkin, citing the former Republican senator from Arizona.

They both also noted that Sinema is not up for reelection until 2024, making it hard to determine how the book might affect her political career.

“She’s got two more years before she has to face voters, so I’ll be interested to see how she continues to play her hand,” Rubashkin said.

Rose agreed, noting that if Sinema can make it through the Democratic primary she is likely to survive the general election.

“I think Kyrsten Sinema is getting as close to a bulletproof general election candidate as the Democratic Party, or any party could offer in Arizona,” Rose said. “Her challenge, of course, is now the Democratic primary.”

Tim Steller's opinion: Sinema misdiagnoses election problem, needs to push for solution

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema points to the angry divisions in our country as one of our top problems, and she’s not wrong.

That’s one of the main points the Arizona Democrat made in a high-profile speech last week announcing her approach to two voting-rights bills in the U.S. Senate. She was right that we need to re-learn how to bridge our differences, not demonize our opponents, and come to compromise solutions.

But her logic fails her in the current context of voting rights bills blocked by the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster.

She’s wrong to think that polarization is what’s causing efforts to limit voting rights. And that makes her wrong in her approach to the filibuster itself, which she is obstinately upholding in its most draconian, impractical form, rather than pushing to change it.

This week, the pressure mounts again on Sinema as the Senate’s majority leader, Sen. Chuck Schumer, tries to push two voting-rights bills through the body divided 50-50, despite unanimous Republican opposition.

One bill, the Freedom to Vote Act, would make Election Day a federal holiday, require at least 15 days of early voting, make mail-in voting mandatory, ban partisan gerrymandering and tighten campaign-finance disclosure requirements, among many changes.

The other, the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, would restore pre-clearance requirements for election changes in some states, among many other changes. Schumer is trying to combine the bills with a third bill in order to facilitate passage.

Democrats nationwide have been hammering Sinema for the potentially contradictory stand she took last week. She says she supports the voting rights bills but opposes a temporary suspension of filibuster rules that would let them pass on a party-line vote, if all Democrats voted yes.

On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Martin Luther King III shamed her and fellow Democratic U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin for placing the filibuster on a higher pedestal than voting rights.

“Senator Manchin, Senator Sinema, members of the Senate, pass the Freedom to Vote John R. Lewis Act now,” he said. “If you can deliver an infrastructure bill for bridges, you can deliver voting rights for America.”

“If you do not, there is no bridge in this nation that can hold the weight of that failure.”

It was a stinging commentary. And it probably hurts Sinema that Emily’s List, the group supporting pro-choice female candidates, announced Tuesday it will no longer support her.

But that pressure probably won’t change anything.

That’s because Sinema has wrongly diagnosed the reasons for changes that may make it harder to vote in various Republican-controlled states, including Arizona.

“We must also acknowledge a painful fact,” Sinema said in her speech last week. “The state laws we seek to address are symptoms of a larger, more deeply rooted problem facing our democracy — the divisions themselves, which have hardened in recent years, and have combined with rampant disinformation to push too many Americans away from our basic constitutional values.”

This is wrong. And Sinema indirectly acknowledged that in her speech.

The worst changes in voting laws are not a result of polarization. This isn’t a “both-sides” issue. These changes are an effort to preserve Republican political power, using false claims of election fraud by former President Donald Trump as a justification. It’s about seizing power, not polarization.

This is not to say Democrats are pristine and their bills are perfect. For example, the Freedom to Vote Act would force states to let voters register up to Election Day. That’s a potential major headache for election officials and the political parties and campaigns.

Essentially, with this change, the universe of registered voters would be unknown till after the election. And recorders’ offices would never be able to transition from registering voters to receiving and processing early ballots, as they do now under Arizona’s popular mail-in ballot system.

But more crucial: Sinema’s position in support of the 60-vote filibuster is not creating any compromise on these or other bills. The filibuster is not creating the compromise that Sinema keeps saying it will.

The current filibuster allows any member to use an email to tell the Senate they are blocking a bill, and forces the majority to prove they have the 60 votes to pass it.

Sinema has said for a year that she’s willing to entertain reforms to the filibuster, but she should go beyond openness to reform and push for specific reforms herself. The principle should be that it ought to take effort to block the majority’s will.

Among the possible reforms:

Return to a speaking filibuster, which requires those blocking a bill to speak on the floor, as in the old days, instead of just typing an email.

Require those who want to invoke a filibuster to get 41 votes, instead of requiring those who want to pass a bill to get 60. This puts the onus on those standing in the way of the majority.

Ratchet down the number of votes required to pass a bill. This means requiring maybe 60 for a period of days or weeks, then, say, 57 votes, then 54, etc. It would give time and reason for the minority and majority to compromise.

Simply reduce the number of votes required for a filibuster, from 60 to, say, 57 or 55.

If Sinema would assertively pursue any of these reforms, rather than embracing the current, painless way of blocking majority rule, it would be easier to accept her contradictory position on the voting-rights bills.

Instead she’s offering a false diagnosis of the election-law problem and no solution to the Senate’s minority rule.

Sinema approached by Tucson constituent over 'Build Back Better' plan

For the second time in a month, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema was publicly confronted in an airport and questioned about her stance on President Biden's "Build Back Better" infrastructure bill. 

In a viral video posted Oct. 25 on Twitter, a woman who says she is a constituent from Tucson approaches Sinema as she walks alongside Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina. 

Once again @kyrstensinema ignores concerned advocate fighting for healthcare for her family in Arizona. #BuildBackBetter pic.twitter.com/GK5t5mHCuc

— People’s Watch (@Peoples_Watch_) October 25, 2021

Sinema does not answer the woman's questions but at one point tells her, "Please don't touch me."

The woman asks Sinema questions about meeting with constituents to discuss the "Build Back Better" plan and the senator's actions on climate change. 

"Every single year in Arizona it's getting hotter and hotter," the woman says, "People are suffering, your constituents are suffering. What are you going to do about climate change?"

In the video, which now has over 2 million views, Sinema apologizes to Sen. Scott as the woman follows the two through the airport, saying, "Sorry about this."

Earlier this month, a day after being approached by activists at Arizona State University and followed into a bathroom, a video posted on Twitter showed Sinema being confronted by protesters and activists at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.

Similarly, Sinema was asked questions about her lack of support for Biden's trillion-dollar plan and does not respond as she speaks on her cell phone.

Meanwhile, Sinema became the subject of more viral social media posts this week after the Arizona senator wore a sleeveless jean jacket while presiding over the U.S. Senate.

Internet users criticized her outfit, saying that it was "unprofessional attire" and a "ploy to get attention." 

A viral tweet calling Sinema's denim vest an "Aaron Neville Halloween costume" was reposted by the R&B singer, who said "I believe I wore it better."

I believe I wore it better @BobMehr @SenatorSinema https://t.co/5afXX88BZL

— Aaron Neville (@aaronneville) October 27, 2021

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema officiated wedding where some guests dressed in Native American costumes

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema officiated a wedding in Bisbee over the weekend where costumed guests included a couple of people wearing Native American costumes with full headdresses and face paint.

Sinema danced next to a person dressed as a unicorn at the wedding, while protestors marched outside and one passerby yelled that she was a corrupt sell-out, a video posted on YouTube shows.

“Senator Sinema officiated a personal friend’s wedding at which a small group of activists protested during the private ceremony,” said Sinema’s spokesperson Hannah Hurley in an email. “While the Senator knows the bride and groom, she does not know and did not interact with the wedding guests who wore disrespectful and racist costumes to the ceremony, and she strongly condemns such behavior.”

The video, taken by a protester, shows Sinema through an opening in the wall where the wedding took place smiling and dancing while a man outside yells “Sinema is taking corporate money to destroy us all.”

About 20 protesters marched outside The Courtyard, a venue in downtown Bisbee, where the wedding was taking place. The wedding schedule said costumes were welcome.

Bisbee resident Molly Harrico, who was at the protest, said she was “shocked and appalled and disgusted by the white people who walked into the wedding party dressed in full Native American regalia.”

Harrico attended the protest because of Sinema’s opposition to the Biden administration’s Reconciliation Bill, which contains climate change provisions the Bisbee resident particularly supports.

“It felt to me like an opportunity to let it be known that we are not happy with how she’s conducting herself,” Harrico said. “As a representative who works for the people, she certainly is not doing that. It feels to me like she’s just an obstructionist basically.”

Hurley responded, "As she has said publicly, Senator Sinema is excited for the opportunity in the legislation to pass policies addressing our changing climate."

Several people at the protest who spoke with the Star said they saw it as an opportunity to have their voices be heard by an elected official who they find inaccessible, including Anne Teters, a Bisbee business owner.

“I’ve been very dismayed and horrified and astonished and disgusted by the way Kyrsten Sinema keeps blocking legislation that we need like to lower prescription drug prices or to raise minimum wage or to protect the climate — all these things we obviously need for the future, for the present,” Teters said.

Sinema, elected to the Senate as an Arizona Democrat in November 2018, has received criticism for not getting behind key pieces of the Democrats’ agenda, including the $3.5 trillion bill. It would have included funding for clean energy and policies to combat climate change as well as free community college, funding for child care and universal pre-K, medicare expansion, extending the child tax-credit, cutting prescription drug prices, paid family and medical leave and more.

The New York Times reported that Sinema was scheduled earlier this month for a fundraiser with business lobbying groups who oppose the bill. Salon reported that she has received a total of about $750,000 in campaign donations from the pharmaceutical and medical-device industries.

“She’s got the whole country in a stranglehold,” said Bisbee resident Gretchen Baer, who attended the protest, referring to the fact that Sinema is one of two Democratic holdouts in the Senate who are blocking that key piece of President Biden’s agenda. “This is not just some local politician that we don’t like for whatever reasons. This is somebody who on a global level is stopping positive change.”

As guests entered the wedding, they were handed little American flags, and the ceremony began with them singing the Star Spangled Banner.

Protestors outside the walls of the venue agreed to be quiet once the ceremony started, after a woman who said she was the bride’s mother was seen pleading, on the video, that they not ruin her daughter’s wedding, while some protesters shouted at her.

But one man who walked by and heard Sinema was inside had something to say. “Stop taking corporate money,” he yelled over the wall. “Total corruption of our government. Total sell out. Totally unacceptable.”

“Keep laughing,” he says on the video, as it shows Sinema inside the walls smiling and dancing with wedding guests.

Baer said Sinema and the other guests could definitely hear the man outside, as his voice boomed over everything else.

Baer and other people in Bisbee said that during a dinner with the wedding party, Sinema was wearing a jacket that said “Go sit on a cactus,” reminiscent of photos of her that went viral in April wearing a ring that said “F— off.”

“In all the years that Kyrsten Sinema has been representing us, she’s never come to Bisbee, never had any interest, never done one thing, never reached out in any way, shape or form,” Baer said. “This was our opportunity to speak up, so we took it.”

'SNL' takes more jabs at Sen. Kyrsten Sinema in latest episode

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema was the punchline of several jokes during "Saturday Night Live" skits that aired Oct. 23.

Sinema has been making headlines lately, along with Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, after the two Democrats held back from voting in favor of President Biden's multi-trillion-dollar infrastructure bill. 

During Saturday's "SNL" cold open, host Jason Sudeikis played one of three versions of Biden alongside comedians James Austin Johnson and Alex Moffat. About halfway through the skit, Sudeikis, acting as Biden when he was vice president, jokes that Sen. Sinema "sounds like a 'Star Wars' character." 

Sinema was also name-dropped during the popular "Weekend Update" segment of the show, with co-host Michael Che poking fun at her decision to not support "raising taxes on the wealthy to pay for Biden's agenda."

"Finally, someone speaking up for billionaires," Che said, with noticeable sarcasm. 

This is not the first time "SNL" has used Sinema as joke material, as longtime cast member Cecily Strong portrayed the U.S. senator earlier this month when the show aired the first episode of its 47th season. 

Tim Steller's opinion: Sinema needs to say where she stands on key proposals

People have been bothering Sen. Kyrsten Sinema.

Harassing her.

Even committing a crime against her!

You may have heard such descriptions if you’ve been paying attention to the news or social media the last few days. Sinema, a Democrat, continues to withhold support for the Biden reconciliation bill that would cost around $350 billion a year for 10 years — $3.5 trillion total. That has made Sinema the center of attention, where she appeared to like to be until now.

Now people aren’t just writing angry editorials or mocking her on Saturday Night Live, as they did over the weekend. They’re getting in her face. Getting personal.

This became a big deal on Sunday, when a group of activists for immigrant rights from the group Lucha AZ gathered outside a classroom where she was teaching at Arizona State University. They even followed her into the bathroom, demanding she take a stand for legalization of undocumented people.

Later, a woman, Karina Ruiz, politely confronted Sinema on a flight to Washington D.C., and the senator wouldn’t even look up to respond. Others greeted her with protests at the airport there. She didn’t respond.

Sure, following her into the bathroom crossed a line. It may even have been illegal, because videotaping a person in a bathroom without their permission is a crime in Arizona.

But honestly, these are minor points in the bigger context.

The real question is the issue these activists were pressing Sinema on: What exactly does she stand for?

She has positioned herself as a wily negotiator, withholding a vote her party depends on to advocate for smaller spending increases. But she says almost nothing publicly except that she won’t “negotiate in public.”

It’s almost as if she’s become such a creature of Washington that she thinks her real obligations are to the people and the process there, not to the people here.

Only a creature of Washington would define centrism, or pragmatism, as finding a midway point between the parties’ positions.

In real life, the positions that Sinema appears to be taking are outliers relative to public opinion — in that sense, neither pragmatic nor centrist.

The worst is her apparent opposition, reported by Politico, to the reconciliation bill’s language allowing Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices. This provision is supported by 85% to 90% of the people in Arizona and the United States, polling shows.

She has not stated her position on this publicly.

Sinema also opposes the Biden proposal to raise some taxes on the wealthy and on corporations to pay for the plan, the New York Times reports. That taxing proposal is popular too.

Polling by the left-of-center Future Majority group shows that these tax proposals actually increase support in Arizona for Biden’s plan. For example, Future Majority’s polling found that support for the broad plan went from 54% in favor to 43% against to 63-33 in favor when respondents were told of the plan to impose a 2% wealth tax on households with net worth over $50 million.

She has not stated her position publicly.

On important planks involving immigration, climate change and the expansion of Medicare to cover vision, dental and hearing service, we don’t know where she stands.

In fact, despite the crucial position she’s assumed, she hasn’t talked publicly with Arizonans for a long time. She did have a fundraiser in Phoenix over the weekend though, and impolite activists shouted over the walls to make her hear them — until they were forced away by police.

Her spokeswoman, Hannah Hurley, told me in an email Tuesday evening that Sinema supports various goals, such as cheaper health care and prescription drugs, but would not reveal more specific positions.

“Given the size and scope of the proposal — and the lack of detailed legislative language, or even consensus between the Senate and House around several provisions — we are not offering detailed comments on any one proposed piece of the package.”

Sinema took great umbrage Friday when the House decided not to vote on a trillion-dollar infrastructure plan. Progressive Democrats refused to do so until they had reassurances about what would happen to the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill.

Sinema called that decision “inexcusable” and a betrayal of trust.

But when I talked with Rep. Raúl Grijalva on Tuesday, the Tucson Democrat, he said he opposed voting on the infrastructure bill because Sinema and others had made no commitment to proceed with the reconciliation bill.

“It’s up to her to tell us what she believes should be in there,” he said. “With this much attention comes some responsibility.”

Now, it’s worth mentioning Sen. Mark Kelly here — the other Democratic U.S. senator from Arizona, who has not had so much attention. He has also avoided taking some stands on important issues

But on some of these planks of the reconciliation bill, he’s stated his stand. On giving Medicare the ability to negotiate prescription drug prices, on expanding Medicare coverage to dental and other services, on extending a path to citizenship for DACA recipients, he’s a clear yes. He's also voiced some opposition to the Trump tax cuts, some of which could be reversed under the Biden proposal. 

But of course Kelly has not been at the center of negotiations or a leading critic of the reconciliation bill, as Sinema has.

If you’re going to put yourself in that position of power, and if you’re going to claim to be a centrist voting in Arizona’s best interest, then you need to be prepared to explain where you stand and why, especially on popular proposals like the prescription-drug plan.

Maybe you shouldn’t have to explain in the bathroom, but just about anywhere else.

Stephen Colbert rips into Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema on Late Show

In Thursday night's "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert," the late-night host took several jabs at U.S. Senator Kyrsten Sinema, one of two Democrats in the Senate not backing President Biden's $3.5 trillion bill to reshape the economy.

Sinema and Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who say the bill is too big, play critical roles in the passing of Biden's "build back better" plan, as there is no Republican support of the bill in the Senate. 

Colbert's remarks about Sinema and Manchin start around the 2:30 mark of his opening monologue from the Sept. 30 "Late Show" that aired last night.

Colbert also featured an edited scene from the 1975 Al Pacino movie “Dog Day Afternoon," using voiceovers to mock Sinema's "stand-off" with lawmakers.

On #LSSC tonight: Sen. Kyrsten Sinema can’t make up her mind. pic.twitter.com/yXURaXegEt

— The Late Show (@colbertlateshow) October 1, 2021

 

Political Notebook: Sinema faces new backlash, this time over prescription-drug position

Democratic U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema is facing another big backlash from the side that supported her in the 2018 election.

The main source of anger this time: her opposition to a plan to reduce prescription drug prices that is a key part of the Biden administration’s $3.5 trillion spending proposal.

It came out in a Politico story published Sunday that Sinema told Biden administration officials during a negotiating session last week that she opposes their prescription drug proposal. She also opposes a pared-down version offered in the House.

Giving Medicare the right to negotiate prescription drug prices not only would be key to paying for the spending proposal, because it is projected to save around $500 billion, but also is very popular with the public. A Kaiser Family Foundation poll from May found that 88% of respondents favored the action the Biden administration is proposing.

And Sinema herself campaigned for U.S. Senate in 2018 on reducing prescription drug prices.

After the Politico story came out, critics noted Sinema is one of the pharmaceutical industry’s biggest recipients of donations, a relationship that has gone on since she was in the House.

Salon reported that she has received a total of about $750,000 in campaign donations from the pharmaceutical and medical-device industries. More than $120,000 came from pharmaceutical industry donations in 2019 and 2020, Salon reported.

And the Daily Poster website reported that the Center Forward Political Action Committee, which has received large donations from the pharmaceutical industry, put out TV ads and sent out mailers supporting Sinema in the week before she objected to the prescription-drug provision.

Tucson physician Dr. Cadey Harrel, who leads the Committee to Protect Healthcare in Arizona, sent a letter signed so far by 150 other doctors and health professionals demanding that Sinema “put people’s lives ahead of the profits of pharmaceutical corporations.”

“As medical professionals who aim to prevent harm and promote the health and safety of our patients, we urge you to live up to your promises and support current proposals in Congress to reduce the high cost of prescription drugs,” the letter says.

Sinema’s office told Politico she will not comment on the details of the ongoing negotiation.

— Tim Steller

Attorney general goes anti-vax

In a speech at the Quail Creek Republican Club, Attorney General Mark Brnovich appeared to question the point of getting vaccines for COVID-19.

Brnovich, who is running for U.S. Senate, spoke to the Republican club in the Sahuarita subdivision on Sept. 17.

A leaked audio recording of his comments, broadcast by KPHO TV Channel 5 in Phoenix, showed Brnovich denigrating the vaccine as seemingly useless.

“If you can get COVID after you’ve had the vaccine and you can still spread it, then what’s the point of the vaccine?” he asked the crowd, which responded with cheers.

Asked by reporter Dennis Welch to explain the comments, Brnovich did not address them directly but called the recording “misleading,” Welch reported.

The vaccine minimizes the likelihood of severe COVID-19 disease or hospitalization in vaccinated people. From March through August, unvaccinated people made up more than 90% of those hospitalized for COVID-19 and those killed by COVID-19 in Arizona.

However, opposing vaccine mandates and even the vaccine itself has become a strong current of opinion in the Republican Party. Brnovich, who is running for the GOP nomination, has refused to say whether he is vaccinated.

— Tim Steller

Anti-Prop. 206 campaign forms

A new political action committee has formed in opposition to the ballot measure to raise Tucson’s minimum wage to $15 an hour.

The measure, Prop. 206, would gradually raise the city’s minimum wage to $15 an hour by January 2025 and establish a new labor department within the city to enforce the initiative’s components. A new group, “No on 206,” is starting to raise money to encourage voters to reject the initiative.

The PAC filed its statement of organization with the City Clerk’s Office on Aug. 31, listing its chairpersons as Jesse Lugo, a longtime local businessman, and Carlos Ruiz, owner of the stainless-steel supplier HT Metals.

Ruiz said the campaign is starting to receive donations. He wouldn’t get into specifics on the PAC’s communication strategy but said the group will engage in “a traditional campaign to educate the public on the detrimental effects” of the minimum-wage proposal.

The group has yet to issue any campaign spending reports, but Ruiz said “everything will be filed properly.”

The new PAC will be up against a longstanding campaign by the Fight for $15 group that has already raised $80,000 and won prominent allies in City Hall, including Mayor Regina Romero.

— Nicole Ludden

Sinema approached by Tucson constituent over 'Build Back Better' plan

For the second time in a month, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema was publicly confronted in an airport and questioned about her stance on President Biden's "Build Back Better" infrastructure bill. 

In a viral video posted Oct. 25 on Twitter, a woman who says she is a constituent from Tucson approaches Sinema as she walks alongside Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina. 

Once again @kyrstensinema ignores concerned advocate fighting for healthcare for her family in Arizona. #BuildBackBetter pic.twitter.com/GK5t5mHCuc

— People’s Watch (@Peoples_Watch_) October 25, 2021

Sinema does not answer the woman's questions but at one point tells her, "Please don't touch me."

The woman asks Sinema questions about meeting with constituents to discuss the "Build Back Better" plan and the senator's actions on climate change. 

"Every single year in Arizona it's getting hotter and hotter," the woman says, "People are suffering, your constituents are suffering. What are you going to do about climate change?"

In the video, which now has over 2 million views, Sinema apologizes to Sen. Scott as the woman follows the two through the airport, saying, "Sorry about this."

Earlier this month, a day after being approached by activists at Arizona State University and followed into a bathroom, a video posted on Twitter showed Sinema being confronted by protesters and activists at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema just arrived at DCA, where a small number of protestors were waiting. They asked her what she would cut from the larger human infrastructure package. Sinema did not answer. pic.twitter.com/4EXCGDxwIl

— Kyle Stewart (@KyleAlexStewart) October 4, 2021

Similarly, Sinema was asked questions about her lack of support for Biden's trillion-dollar plan and does not respond as she speaks on her cell phone.

Meanwhile, Sinema became the subject of more viral social media posts this week after the Arizona senator wore a sleeveless jean jacket while presiding over the U.S. Senate.

Internet users criticized her outfit, saying that it was "unprofessional attire" and a "ploy to get attention." 

A viral tweet calling Sinema's denim vest an "Aaron Neville Halloween costume" was reposted by the R&B singer, who said "I believe I wore it better."

I believe I wore it better @BobMehr @SenatorSinema https://t.co/5afXX88BZL

— Aaron Neville (@aaronneville) October 27, 2021

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema officiated wedding where some guests dressed in Native American costumes

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema officiated a wedding in Bisbee over the weekend where costumed guests included a couple of people wearing Native American costumes with full headdresses and face paint.

Sinema danced next to a person dressed as a unicorn at the wedding, while protestors marched outside and one passerby yelled that she was a corrupt sell-out, a video posted on YouTube shows.

“Senator Sinema officiated a personal friend’s wedding at which a small group of activists protested during the private ceremony,” said Sinema’s spokesperson Hannah Hurley in an email. “While the Senator knows the bride and groom, she does not know and did not interact with the wedding guests who wore disrespectful and racist costumes to the ceremony, and she strongly condemns such behavior.”

The video, taken by a protester, shows Sinema through an opening in the wall where the wedding took place smiling and dancing while a man outside yells “Sinema is taking corporate money to destroy us all.”

About 20 protesters marched outside The Courtyard, a venue in downtown Bisbee, where the wedding was taking place. The wedding schedule said costumes were welcome.

Bisbee resident Molly Harrico, who was at the protest, said she was “shocked and appalled and disgusted by the white people who walked into the wedding party dressed in full Native American regalia.”

Harrico attended the protest because of Sinema’s opposition to the Biden administration’s Reconciliation Bill, which contains climate change provisions the Bisbee resident particularly supports.

“It felt to me like an opportunity to let it be known that we are not happy with how she’s conducting herself,” Harrico said. “As a representative who works for the people, she certainly is not doing that. It feels to me like she’s just an obstructionist basically.”

Hurley responded, "As she has said publicly, Senator Sinema is excited for the opportunity in the legislation to pass policies addressing our changing climate."

Several people at the protest who spoke with the Star said they saw it as an opportunity to have their voices be heard by an elected official who they find inaccessible, including Anne Teters, a Bisbee business owner.

“I’ve been very dismayed and horrified and astonished and disgusted by the way Kyrsten Sinema keeps blocking legislation that we need like to lower prescription drug prices or to raise minimum wage or to protect the climate — all these things we obviously need for the future, for the present,” Teters said.

Sinema, elected to the Senate as an Arizona Democrat in November 2018, has received criticism for not getting behind key pieces of the Democrats’ agenda, including the $3.5 trillion bill. It would have included funding for clean energy and policies to combat climate change as well as free community college, funding for child care and universal pre-K, medicare expansion, extending the child tax-credit, cutting prescription drug prices, paid family and medical leave and more.

The New York Times reported that Sinema was scheduled earlier this month for a fundraiser with business lobbying groups who oppose the bill. Salon reported that she has received a total of about $750,000 in campaign donations from the pharmaceutical and medical-device industries.

“She’s got the whole country in a stranglehold,” said Bisbee resident Gretchen Baer, who attended the protest, referring to the fact that Sinema is one of two Democratic holdouts in the Senate who are blocking that key piece of President Biden’s agenda. “This is not just some local politician that we don’t like for whatever reasons. This is somebody who on a global level is stopping positive change.”

As guests entered the wedding, they were handed little American flags, and the ceremony began with them singing the Star Spangled Banner.

Protestors outside the walls of the venue agreed to be quiet once the ceremony started, after a woman who said she was the bride’s mother was seen pleading, on the video, that they not ruin her daughter’s wedding, while some protesters shouted at her.

But one man who walked by and heard Sinema was inside had something to say. “Stop taking corporate money,” he yelled over the wall. “Total corruption of our government. Total sell out. Totally unacceptable.”

“Keep laughing,” he says on the video, as it shows Sinema inside the walls smiling and dancing with wedding guests.

Baer said Sinema and the other guests could definitely hear the man outside, as his voice boomed over everything else.

Baer and other people in Bisbee said that during a dinner with the wedding party, Sinema was wearing a jacket that said “Go sit on a cactus,” reminiscent of photos of her that went viral in April wearing a ring that said “F— off.”

“In all the years that Kyrsten Sinema has been representing us, she’s never come to Bisbee, never had any interest, never done one thing, never reached out in any way, shape or form,” Baer said. “This was our opportunity to speak up, so we took it.”

'SNL' takes more jabs at Sen. Kyrsten Sinema in latest episode

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema was the punchline of several jokes during "Saturday Night Live" skits that aired Oct. 23.

Sinema has been making headlines lately, along with Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, after the two Democrats held back from voting in favor of President Biden's multi-trillion-dollar infrastructure bill. 

During Saturday's "SNL" cold open, host Jason Sudeikis played one of three versions of Biden alongside comedians James Austin Johnson and Alex Moffat. About halfway through the skit, Sudeikis, acting as Biden when he was vice president, jokes that Sen. Sinema "sounds like a 'Star Wars' character." 

Sinema was also name-dropped during the popular "Weekend Update" segment of the show, with co-host Michael Che poking fun at her decision to not support "raising taxes on the wealthy to pay for Biden's agenda."

"Finally, someone speaking up for billionaires," Che said, with noticeable sarcasm. 

This is not the first time "SNL" has used Sinema as joke material, as longtime cast member Cecily Strong portrayed the U.S. senator earlier this month when the show aired the first episode of its 47th season. 

Tim Steller's opinion: Sinema needs to say where she stands on key proposals

People have been bothering Sen. Kyrsten Sinema.

Harassing her.

Even committing a crime against her!

You may have heard such descriptions if you’ve been paying attention to the news or social media the last few days. Sinema, a Democrat, continues to withhold support for the Biden reconciliation bill that would cost around $350 billion a year for 10 years — $3.5 trillion total. That has made Sinema the center of attention, where she appeared to like to be until now.

Now people aren’t just writing angry editorials or mocking her on Saturday Night Live, as they did over the weekend. They’re getting in her face. Getting personal.

This became a big deal on Sunday, when a group of activists for immigrant rights from the group Lucha AZ gathered outside a classroom where she was teaching at Arizona State University. They even followed her into the bathroom, demanding she take a stand for legalization of undocumented people.

Later, a woman, Karina Ruiz, politely confronted Sinema on a flight to Washington D.C., and the senator wouldn’t even look up to respond. Others greeted her with protests at the airport there. She didn’t respond.

Sure, following her into the bathroom crossed a line. It may even have been illegal, because videotaping a person in a bathroom without their permission is a crime in Arizona.

But honestly, these are minor points in the bigger context.

The real question is the issue these activists were pressing Sinema on: What exactly does she stand for?

She has positioned herself as a wily negotiator, withholding a vote her party depends on to advocate for smaller spending increases. But she says almost nothing publicly except that she won’t “negotiate in public.”

It’s almost as if she’s become such a creature of Washington that she thinks her real obligations are to the people and the process there, not to the people here.

Only a creature of Washington would define centrism, or pragmatism, as finding a midway point between the parties’ positions.

In real life, the positions that Sinema appears to be taking are outliers relative to public opinion — in that sense, neither pragmatic nor centrist.

The worst is her apparent opposition, reported by Politico, to the reconciliation bill’s language allowing Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices. This provision is supported by 85% to 90% of the people in Arizona and the United States, polling shows.

She has not stated her position on this publicly.

Sinema also opposes the Biden proposal to raise some taxes on the wealthy and on corporations to pay for the plan, the New York Times reports. That taxing proposal is popular too.

Polling by the left-of-center Future Majority group shows that these tax proposals actually increase support in Arizona for Biden’s plan. For example, Future Majority’s polling found that support for the broad plan went from 54% in favor to 43% against to 63-33 in favor when respondents were told of the plan to impose a 2% wealth tax on households with net worth over $50 million.

She has not stated her position publicly.

On important planks involving immigration, climate change and the expansion of Medicare to cover vision, dental and hearing service, we don’t know where she stands.

In fact, despite the crucial position she’s assumed, she hasn’t talked publicly with Arizonans for a long time. She did have a fundraiser in Phoenix over the weekend though, and impolite activists shouted over the walls to make her hear them — until they were forced away by police.

Her spokeswoman, Hannah Hurley, told me in an email Tuesday evening that Sinema supports various goals, such as cheaper health care and prescription drugs, but would not reveal more specific positions.

“Given the size and scope of the proposal — and the lack of detailed legislative language, or even consensus between the Senate and House around several provisions — we are not offering detailed comments on any one proposed piece of the package.”

Sinema took great umbrage Friday when the House decided not to vote on a trillion-dollar infrastructure plan. Progressive Democrats refused to do so until they had reassurances about what would happen to the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill.

Sinema called that decision “inexcusable” and a betrayal of trust.

But when I talked with Rep. Raúl Grijalva on Tuesday, the Tucson Democrat, he said he opposed voting on the infrastructure bill because Sinema and others had made no commitment to proceed with the reconciliation bill.

“It’s up to her to tell us what she believes should be in there,” he said. “With this much attention comes some responsibility.”

Now, it’s worth mentioning Sen. Mark Kelly here — the other Democratic U.S. senator from Arizona, who has not had so much attention. He has also avoided taking some stands on important issues

But on some of these planks of the reconciliation bill, he’s stated his stand. On giving Medicare the ability to negotiate prescription drug prices, on expanding Medicare coverage to dental and other services, on extending a path to citizenship for DACA recipients, he’s a clear yes. He's also voiced some opposition to the Trump tax cuts, some of which could be reversed under the Biden proposal. 

But of course Kelly has not been at the center of negotiations or a leading critic of the reconciliation bill, as Sinema has.

If you’re going to put yourself in that position of power, and if you’re going to claim to be a centrist voting in Arizona’s best interest, then you need to be prepared to explain where you stand and why, especially on popular proposals like the prescription-drug plan.

Maybe you shouldn’t have to explain in the bathroom, but just about anywhere else.

Stephen Colbert rips into Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema on Late Show

In Thursday night's "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert," the late-night host took several jabs at U.S. Senator Kyrsten Sinema, one of two Democrats in the Senate not backing President Biden's $3.5 trillion bill to reshape the economy.

Sinema and Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who say the bill is too big, play critical roles in the passing of Biden's "build back better" plan, as there is no Republican support of the bill in the Senate. 

Colbert's remarks about Sinema and Manchin start around the 2:30 mark of his opening monologue from the Sept. 30 "Late Show" that aired last night.

Colbert also featured an edited scene from the 1975 Al Pacino movie “Dog Day Afternoon," using voiceovers to mock Sinema's "stand-off" with lawmakers.

On #LSSC tonight: Sen. Kyrsten Sinema can’t make up her mind. pic.twitter.com/yXURaXegEt

— The Late Show (@colbertlateshow) October 1, 2021

 

Political Notebook: Sinema faces new backlash, this time over prescription-drug position

Democratic U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema is facing another big backlash from the side that supported her in the 2018 election.

The main source of anger this time: her opposition to a plan to reduce prescription drug prices that is a key part of the Biden administration’s $3.5 trillion spending proposal.

It came out in a Politico story published Sunday that Sinema told Biden administration officials during a negotiating session last week that she opposes their prescription drug proposal. She also opposes a pared-down version offered in the House.

Giving Medicare the right to negotiate prescription drug prices not only would be key to paying for the spending proposal, because it is projected to save around $500 billion, but also is very popular with the public. A Kaiser Family Foundation poll from May found that 88% of respondents favored the action the Biden administration is proposing.

And Sinema herself campaigned for U.S. Senate in 2018 on reducing prescription drug prices.

After the Politico story came out, critics noted Sinema is one of the pharmaceutical industry’s biggest recipients of donations, a relationship that has gone on since she was in the House.

Salon reported that she has received a total of about $750,000 in campaign donations from the pharmaceutical and medical-device industries. More than $120,000 came from pharmaceutical industry donations in 2019 and 2020, Salon reported.

And the Daily Poster website reported that the Center Forward Political Action Committee, which has received large donations from the pharmaceutical industry, put out TV ads and sent out mailers supporting Sinema in the week before she objected to the prescription-drug provision.

Tucson physician Dr. Cadey Harrel, who leads the Committee to Protect Healthcare in Arizona, sent a letter signed so far by 150 other doctors and health professionals demanding that Sinema “put people’s lives ahead of the profits of pharmaceutical corporations.”

“As medical professionals who aim to prevent harm and promote the health and safety of our patients, we urge you to live up to your promises and support current proposals in Congress to reduce the high cost of prescription drugs,” the letter says.

Sinema’s office told Politico she will not comment on the details of the ongoing negotiation.

— Tim Steller

Attorney general goes anti-vax

In a speech at the Quail Creek Republican Club, Attorney General Mark Brnovich appeared to question the point of getting vaccines for COVID-19.

Brnovich, who is running for U.S. Senate, spoke to the Republican club in the Sahuarita subdivision on Sept. 17.

A leaked audio recording of his comments, broadcast by KPHO TV Channel 5 in Phoenix, showed Brnovich denigrating the vaccine as seemingly useless.

“If you can get COVID after you’ve had the vaccine and you can still spread it, then what’s the point of the vaccine?” he asked the crowd, which responded with cheers.

Asked by reporter Dennis Welch to explain the comments, Brnovich did not address them directly but called the recording “misleading,” Welch reported.

The vaccine minimizes the likelihood of severe COVID-19 disease or hospitalization in vaccinated people. From March through August, unvaccinated people made up more than 90% of those hospitalized for COVID-19 and those killed by COVID-19 in Arizona.

However, opposing vaccine mandates and even the vaccine itself has become a strong current of opinion in the Republican Party. Brnovich, who is running for the GOP nomination, has refused to say whether he is vaccinated.

— Tim Steller

Anti-Prop. 206 campaign forms

A new political action committee has formed in opposition to the ballot measure to raise Tucson’s minimum wage to $15 an hour.

The measure, Prop. 206, would gradually raise the city’s minimum wage to $15 an hour by January 2025 and establish a new labor department within the city to enforce the initiative’s components. A new group, “No on 206,” is starting to raise money to encourage voters to reject the initiative.

The PAC filed its statement of organization with the City Clerk’s Office on Aug. 31, listing its chairpersons as Jesse Lugo, a longtime local businessman, and Carlos Ruiz, owner of the stainless-steel supplier HT Metals.

Ruiz said the campaign is starting to receive donations. He wouldn’t get into specifics on the PAC’s communication strategy but said the group will engage in “a traditional campaign to educate the public on the detrimental effects” of the minimum-wage proposal.

The group has yet to issue any campaign spending reports, but Ruiz said “everything will be filed properly.”

The new PAC will be up against a longstanding campaign by the Fight for $15 group that has already raised $80,000 and won prominent allies in City Hall, including Mayor Regina Romero.

— Nicole Ludden

Sinema approached by Tucson constituent over 'Build Back Better' plan

For the second time in a month, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema was publicly confronted in an airport and questioned about her stance on President Biden's "Build Back Better" infrastructure bill. 

In a viral video posted Oct. 25 on Twitter, a woman who says she is a constituent from Tucson approaches Sinema as she walks alongside Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina. 

Once again @kyrstensinema ignores concerned advocate fighting for healthcare for her family in Arizona. #BuildBackBetter pic.twitter.com/GK5t5mHCuc

— People’s Watch (@Peoples_Watch_) October 25, 2021

Sinema does not answer the woman's questions but at one point tells her, "Please don't touch me."

The woman asks Sinema questions about meeting with constituents to discuss the "Build Back Better" plan and the senator's actions on climate change. 

"Every single year in Arizona it's getting hotter and hotter," the woman says, "People are suffering, your constituents are suffering. What are you going to do about climate change?"

In the video, which now has over 2 million views, Sinema apologizes to Sen. Scott as the woman follows the two through the airport, saying, "Sorry about this."

Earlier this month, a day after being approached by activists at Arizona State University and followed into a bathroom, a video posted on Twitter showed Sinema being confronted by protesters and activists at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema just arrived at DCA, where a small number of protestors were waiting. They asked her what she would cut from the larger human infrastructure package. Sinema did not answer. pic.twitter.com/4EXCGDxwIl

— Kyle Stewart (@KyleAlexStewart) October 4, 2021

Similarly, Sinema was asked questions about her lack of support for Biden's trillion-dollar plan and does not respond as she speaks on her cell phone.

Meanwhile, Sinema became the subject of more viral social media posts this week after the Arizona senator wore a sleeveless jean jacket while presiding over the U.S. Senate.

Internet users criticized her outfit, saying that it was "unprofessional attire" and a "ploy to get attention." 

A viral tweet calling Sinema's denim vest an "Aaron Neville Halloween costume" was reposted by the R&B singer, who said "I believe I wore it better."

I believe I wore it better @BobMehr @SenatorSinema https://t.co/5afXX88BZL

— Aaron Neville (@aaronneville) October 27, 2021

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema officiated wedding where some guests dressed in Native American costumes

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema officiated a wedding in Bisbee over the weekend where costumed guests included a couple of people wearing Native American costumes with full headdresses and face paint.

Sinema danced next to a person dressed as a unicorn at the wedding, while protestors marched outside and one passerby yelled that she was a corrupt sell-out, a video posted on YouTube shows.

“Senator Sinema officiated a personal friend’s wedding at which a small group of activists protested during the private ceremony,” said Sinema’s spokesperson Hannah Hurley in an email. “While the Senator knows the bride and groom, she does not know and did not interact with the wedding guests who wore disrespectful and racist costumes to the ceremony, and she strongly condemns such behavior.”

The video, taken by a protester, shows Sinema through an opening in the wall where the wedding took place smiling and dancing while a man outside yells “Sinema is taking corporate money to destroy us all.”

About 20 protesters marched outside The Courtyard, a venue in downtown Bisbee, where the wedding was taking place. The wedding schedule said costumes were welcome.

Bisbee resident Molly Harrico, who was at the protest, said she was “shocked and appalled and disgusted by the white people who walked into the wedding party dressed in full Native American regalia.”

Harrico attended the protest because of Sinema’s opposition to the Biden administration’s Reconciliation Bill, which contains climate change provisions the Bisbee resident particularly supports.

“It felt to me like an opportunity to let it be known that we are not happy with how she’s conducting herself,” Harrico said. “As a representative who works for the people, she certainly is not doing that. It feels to me like she’s just an obstructionist basically.”

Hurley responded, "As she has said publicly, Senator Sinema is excited for the opportunity in the legislation to pass policies addressing our changing climate."

Several people at the protest who spoke with the Star said they saw it as an opportunity to have their voices be heard by an elected official who they find inaccessible, including Anne Teters, a Bisbee business owner.

“I’ve been very dismayed and horrified and astonished and disgusted by the way Kyrsten Sinema keeps blocking legislation that we need like to lower prescription drug prices or to raise minimum wage or to protect the climate — all these things we obviously need for the future, for the present,” Teters said.

Sinema, elected to the Senate as an Arizona Democrat in November 2018, has received criticism for not getting behind key pieces of the Democrats’ agenda, including the $3.5 trillion bill. It would have included funding for clean energy and policies to combat climate change as well as free community college, funding for child care and universal pre-K, medicare expansion, extending the child tax-credit, cutting prescription drug prices, paid family and medical leave and more.

The New York Times reported that Sinema was scheduled earlier this month for a fundraiser with business lobbying groups who oppose the bill. Salon reported that she has received a total of about $750,000 in campaign donations from the pharmaceutical and medical-device industries.

“She’s got the whole country in a stranglehold,” said Bisbee resident Gretchen Baer, who attended the protest, referring to the fact that Sinema is one of two Democratic holdouts in the Senate who are blocking that key piece of President Biden’s agenda. “This is not just some local politician that we don’t like for whatever reasons. This is somebody who on a global level is stopping positive change.”

As guests entered the wedding, they were handed little American flags, and the ceremony began with them singing the Star Spangled Banner.

Protestors outside the walls of the venue agreed to be quiet once the ceremony started, after a woman who said she was the bride’s mother was seen pleading, on the video, that they not ruin her daughter’s wedding, while some protesters shouted at her.

But one man who walked by and heard Sinema was inside had something to say. “Stop taking corporate money,” he yelled over the wall. “Total corruption of our government. Total sell out. Totally unacceptable.”

“Keep laughing,” he says on the video, as it shows Sinema inside the walls smiling and dancing with wedding guests.

Baer said Sinema and the other guests could definitely hear the man outside, as his voice boomed over everything else.

Baer and other people in Bisbee said that during a dinner with the wedding party, Sinema was wearing a jacket that said “Go sit on a cactus,” reminiscent of photos of her that went viral in April wearing a ring that said “F— off.”

“In all the years that Kyrsten Sinema has been representing us, she’s never come to Bisbee, never had any interest, never done one thing, never reached out in any way, shape or form,” Baer said. “This was our opportunity to speak up, so we took it.”

'SNL' takes more jabs at Sen. Kyrsten Sinema in latest episode

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema was the punchline of several jokes during "Saturday Night Live" skits that aired Oct. 23.

Sinema has been making headlines lately, along with Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, after the two Democrats held back from voting in favor of President Biden's multi-trillion-dollar infrastructure bill. 

During Saturday's "SNL" cold open, host Jason Sudeikis played one of three versions of Biden alongside comedians James Austin Johnson and Alex Moffat. About halfway through the skit, Sudeikis, acting as Biden when he was vice president, jokes that Sen. Sinema "sounds like a 'Star Wars' character." 

Sinema was also name-dropped during the popular "Weekend Update" segment of the show, with co-host Michael Che poking fun at her decision to not support "raising taxes on the wealthy to pay for Biden's agenda."

"Finally, someone speaking up for billionaires," Che said, with noticeable sarcasm. 

This is not the first time "SNL" has used Sinema as joke material, as longtime cast member Cecily Strong portrayed the U.S. senator earlier this month when the show aired the first episode of its 47th season. 

Tim Steller's opinion: Sinema needs to say where she stands on key proposals

People have been bothering Sen. Kyrsten Sinema.

Harassing her.

Even committing a crime against her!

You may have heard such descriptions if you’ve been paying attention to the news or social media the last few days. Sinema, a Democrat, continues to withhold support for the Biden reconciliation bill that would cost around $350 billion a year for 10 years — $3.5 trillion total. That has made Sinema the center of attention, where she appeared to like to be until now.

Now people aren’t just writing angry editorials or mocking her on Saturday Night Live, as they did over the weekend. They’re getting in her face. Getting personal.

This became a big deal on Sunday, when a group of activists for immigrant rights from the group Lucha AZ gathered outside a classroom where she was teaching at Arizona State University. They even followed her into the bathroom, demanding she take a stand for legalization of undocumented people.

Later, a woman, Karina Ruiz, politely confronted Sinema on a flight to Washington D.C., and the senator wouldn’t even look up to respond. Others greeted her with protests at the airport there. She didn’t respond.

Sure, following her into the bathroom crossed a line. It may even have been illegal, because videotaping a person in a bathroom without their permission is a crime in Arizona.

But honestly, these are minor points in the bigger context.

The real question is the issue these activists were pressing Sinema on: What exactly does she stand for?

She has positioned herself as a wily negotiator, withholding a vote her party depends on to advocate for smaller spending increases. But she says almost nothing publicly except that she won’t “negotiate in public.”

It’s almost as if she’s become such a creature of Washington that she thinks her real obligations are to the people and the process there, not to the people here.

Only a creature of Washington would define centrism, or pragmatism, as finding a midway point between the parties’ positions.

In real life, the positions that Sinema appears to be taking are outliers relative to public opinion — in that sense, neither pragmatic nor centrist.

The worst is her apparent opposition, reported by Politico, to the reconciliation bill’s language allowing Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices. This provision is supported by 85% to 90% of the people in Arizona and the United States, polling shows.

She has not stated her position on this publicly.

Sinema also opposes the Biden proposal to raise some taxes on the wealthy and on corporations to pay for the plan, the New York Times reports. That taxing proposal is popular too.

Polling by the left-of-center Future Majority group shows that these tax proposals actually increase support in Arizona for Biden’s plan. For example, Future Majority’s polling found that support for the broad plan went from 54% in favor to 43% against to 63-33 in favor when respondents were told of the plan to impose a 2% wealth tax on households with net worth over $50 million.

She has not stated her position publicly.

On important planks involving immigration, climate change and the expansion of Medicare to cover vision, dental and hearing service, we don’t know where she stands.

In fact, despite the crucial position she’s assumed, she hasn’t talked publicly with Arizonans for a long time. She did have a fundraiser in Phoenix over the weekend though, and impolite activists shouted over the walls to make her hear them — until they were forced away by police.

Her spokeswoman, Hannah Hurley, told me in an email Tuesday evening that Sinema supports various goals, such as cheaper health care and prescription drugs, but would not reveal more specific positions.

“Given the size and scope of the proposal — and the lack of detailed legislative language, or even consensus between the Senate and House around several provisions — we are not offering detailed comments on any one proposed piece of the package.”

Sinema took great umbrage Friday when the House decided not to vote on a trillion-dollar infrastructure plan. Progressive Democrats refused to do so until they had reassurances about what would happen to the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill.

Sinema called that decision “inexcusable” and a betrayal of trust.

But when I talked with Rep. Raúl Grijalva on Tuesday, the Tucson Democrat, he said he opposed voting on the infrastructure bill because Sinema and others had made no commitment to proceed with the reconciliation bill.

“It’s up to her to tell us what she believes should be in there,” he said. “With this much attention comes some responsibility.”

Now, it’s worth mentioning Sen. Mark Kelly here — the other Democratic U.S. senator from Arizona, who has not had so much attention. He has also avoided taking some stands on important issues

But on some of these planks of the reconciliation bill, he’s stated his stand. On giving Medicare the ability to negotiate prescription drug prices, on expanding Medicare coverage to dental and other services, on extending a path to citizenship for DACA recipients, he’s a clear yes. He's also voiced some opposition to the Trump tax cuts, some of which could be reversed under the Biden proposal. 

But of course Kelly has not been at the center of negotiations or a leading critic of the reconciliation bill, as Sinema has.

If you’re going to put yourself in that position of power, and if you’re going to claim to be a centrist voting in Arizona’s best interest, then you need to be prepared to explain where you stand and why, especially on popular proposals like the prescription-drug plan.

Maybe you shouldn’t have to explain in the bathroom, but just about anywhere else.

Stephen Colbert rips into Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema on Late Show

In Thursday night's "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert," the late-night host took several jabs at U.S. Senator Kyrsten Sinema, one of two Democrats in the Senate not backing President Biden's $3.5 trillion bill to reshape the economy.

Sinema and Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who say the bill is too big, play critical roles in the passing of Biden's "build back better" plan, as there is no Republican support of the bill in the Senate. 

Colbert's remarks about Sinema and Manchin start around the 2:30 mark of his opening monologue from the Sept. 30 "Late Show" that aired last night.

Colbert also featured an edited scene from the 1975 Al Pacino movie “Dog Day Afternoon," using voiceovers to mock Sinema's "stand-off" with lawmakers.

On #LSSC tonight: Sen. Kyrsten Sinema can’t make up her mind. pic.twitter.com/yXURaXegEt

— The Late Show (@colbertlateshow) October 1, 2021

 

Political Notebook: Sinema faces new backlash, this time over prescription-drug position

Democratic U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema is facing another big backlash from the side that supported her in the 2018 election.

The main source of anger this time: her opposition to a plan to reduce prescription drug prices that is a key part of the Biden administration’s $3.5 trillion spending proposal.

It came out in a Politico story published Sunday that Sinema told Biden administration officials during a negotiating session last week that she opposes their prescription drug proposal. She also opposes a pared-down version offered in the House.

Giving Medicare the right to negotiate prescription drug prices not only would be key to paying for the spending proposal, because it is projected to save around $500 billion, but also is very popular with the public. A Kaiser Family Foundation poll from May found that 88% of respondents favored the action the Biden administration is proposing.

And Sinema herself campaigned for U.S. Senate in 2018 on reducing prescription drug prices.

After the Politico story came out, critics noted Sinema is one of the pharmaceutical industry’s biggest recipients of donations, a relationship that has gone on since she was in the House.

Salon reported that she has received a total of about $750,000 in campaign donations from the pharmaceutical and medical-device industries. More than $120,000 came from pharmaceutical industry donations in 2019 and 2020, Salon reported.

And the Daily Poster website reported that the Center Forward Political Action Committee, which has received large donations from the pharmaceutical industry, put out TV ads and sent out mailers supporting Sinema in the week before she objected to the prescription-drug provision.

Tucson physician Dr. Cadey Harrel, who leads the Committee to Protect Healthcare in Arizona, sent a letter signed so far by 150 other doctors and health professionals demanding that Sinema “put people’s lives ahead of the profits of pharmaceutical corporations.”

“As medical professionals who aim to prevent harm and promote the health and safety of our patients, we urge you to live up to your promises and support current proposals in Congress to reduce the high cost of prescription drugs,” the letter says.

Sinema’s office told Politico she will not comment on the details of the ongoing negotiation.

— Tim Steller

Attorney general goes anti-vax

In a speech at the Quail Creek Republican Club, Attorney General Mark Brnovich appeared to question the point of getting vaccines for COVID-19.

Brnovich, who is running for U.S. Senate, spoke to the Republican club in the Sahuarita subdivision on Sept. 17.

A leaked audio recording of his comments, broadcast by KPHO TV Channel 5 in Phoenix, showed Brnovich denigrating the vaccine as seemingly useless.

“If you can get COVID after you’ve had the vaccine and you can still spread it, then what’s the point of the vaccine?” he asked the crowd, which responded with cheers.

Asked by reporter Dennis Welch to explain the comments, Brnovich did not address them directly but called the recording “misleading,” Welch reported.

The vaccine minimizes the likelihood of severe COVID-19 disease or hospitalization in vaccinated people. From March through August, unvaccinated people made up more than 90% of those hospitalized for COVID-19 and those killed by COVID-19 in Arizona.

However, opposing vaccine mandates and even the vaccine itself has become a strong current of opinion in the Republican Party. Brnovich, who is running for the GOP nomination, has refused to say whether he is vaccinated.

— Tim Steller

Anti-Prop. 206 campaign forms

A new political action committee has formed in opposition to the ballot measure to raise Tucson’s minimum wage to $15 an hour.

The measure, Prop. 206, would gradually raise the city’s minimum wage to $15 an hour by January 2025 and establish a new labor department within the city to enforce the initiative’s components. A new group, “No on 206,” is starting to raise money to encourage voters to reject the initiative.

The PAC filed its statement of organization with the City Clerk’s Office on Aug. 31, listing its chairpersons as Jesse Lugo, a longtime local businessman, and Carlos Ruiz, owner of the stainless-steel supplier HT Metals.

Ruiz said the campaign is starting to receive donations. He wouldn’t get into specifics on the PAC’s communication strategy but said the group will engage in “a traditional campaign to educate the public on the detrimental effects” of the minimum-wage proposal.

The group has yet to issue any campaign spending reports, but Ruiz said “everything will be filed properly.”

The new PAC will be up against a longstanding campaign by the Fight for $15 group that has already raised $80,000 and won prominent allies in City Hall, including Mayor Regina Romero.

— Nicole Ludden

Sinema approached by Tucson constituent over 'Build Back Better' plan

For the second time in a month, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema was publicly confronted in an airport and questioned about her stance on President Biden's "Build Back Better" infrastructure bill. 

In a viral video posted Oct. 25 on Twitter, a woman who says she is a constituent from Tucson approaches Sinema as she walks alongside Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina. 

Once again @kyrstensinema ignores concerned advocate fighting for healthcare for her family in Arizona. #BuildBackBetter pic.twitter.com/GK5t5mHCuc

— People’s Watch (@Peoples_Watch_) October 25, 2021

Sinema does not answer the woman's questions but at one point tells her, "Please don't touch me."

The woman asks Sinema questions about meeting with constituents to discuss the "Build Back Better" plan and the senator's actions on climate change. 

"Every single year in Arizona it's getting hotter and hotter," the woman says, "People are suffering, your constituents are suffering. What are you going to do about climate change?"

In the video, which now has over 2 million views, Sinema apologizes to Sen. Scott as the woman follows the two through the airport, saying, "Sorry about this."

Earlier this month, a day after being approached by activists at Arizona State University and followed into a bathroom, a video posted on Twitter showed Sinema being confronted by protesters and activists at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema just arrived at DCA, where a small number of protestors were waiting. They asked her what she would cut from the larger human infrastructure package. Sinema did not answer. pic.twitter.com/4EXCGDxwIl

— Kyle Stewart (@KyleAlexStewart) October 4, 2021

Similarly, Sinema was asked questions about her lack of support for Biden's trillion-dollar plan and does not respond as she speaks on her cell phone.

Meanwhile, Sinema became the subject of more viral social media posts this week after the Arizona senator wore a sleeveless jean jacket while presiding over the U.S. Senate.

Internet users criticized her outfit, saying that it was "unprofessional attire" and a "ploy to get attention." 

A viral tweet calling Sinema's denim vest an "Aaron Neville Halloween costume" was reposted by the R&B singer, who said "I believe I wore it better."

I believe I wore it better @BobMehr @SenatorSinema https://t.co/5afXX88BZL

— Aaron Neville (@aaronneville) October 27, 2021

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema officiated wedding where some guests dressed in Native American costumes

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema officiated a wedding in Bisbee over the weekend where costumed guests included a couple of people wearing Native American costumes with full headdresses and face paint.

Sinema danced next to a person dressed as a unicorn at the wedding, while protestors marched outside and one passerby yelled that she was a corrupt sell-out, a video posted on YouTube shows.

“Senator Sinema officiated a personal friend’s wedding at which a small group of activists protested during the private ceremony,” said Sinema’s spokesperson Hannah Hurley in an email. “While the Senator knows the bride and groom, she does not know and did not interact with the wedding guests who wore disrespectful and racist costumes to the ceremony, and she strongly condemns such behavior.”

The video, taken by a protester, shows Sinema through an opening in the wall where the wedding took place smiling and dancing while a man outside yells “Sinema is taking corporate money to destroy us all.”

About 20 protesters marched outside The Courtyard, a venue in downtown Bisbee, where the wedding was taking place. The wedding schedule said costumes were welcome.

Bisbee resident Molly Harrico, who was at the protest, said she was “shocked and appalled and disgusted by the white people who walked into the wedding party dressed in full Native American regalia.”

Harrico attended the protest because of Sinema’s opposition to the Biden administration’s Reconciliation Bill, which contains climate change provisions the Bisbee resident particularly supports.

“It felt to me like an opportunity to let it be known that we are not happy with how she’s conducting herself,” Harrico said. “As a representative who works for the people, she certainly is not doing that. It feels to me like she’s just an obstructionist basically.”

Hurley responded, "As she has said publicly, Senator Sinema is excited for the opportunity in the legislation to pass policies addressing our changing climate."

Several people at the protest who spoke with the Star said they saw it as an opportunity to have their voices be heard by an elected official who they find inaccessible, including Anne Teters, a Bisbee business owner.

“I’ve been very dismayed and horrified and astonished and disgusted by the way Kyrsten Sinema keeps blocking legislation that we need like to lower prescription drug prices or to raise minimum wage or to protect the climate — all these things we obviously need for the future, for the present,” Teters said.

Sinema, elected to the Senate as an Arizona Democrat in November 2018, has received criticism for not getting behind key pieces of the Democrats’ agenda, including the $3.5 trillion bill. It would have included funding for clean energy and policies to combat climate change as well as free community college, funding for child care and universal pre-K, medicare expansion, extending the child tax-credit, cutting prescription drug prices, paid family and medical leave and more.

The New York Times reported that Sinema was scheduled earlier this month for a fundraiser with business lobbying groups who oppose the bill. Salon reported that she has received a total of about $750,000 in campaign donations from the pharmaceutical and medical-device industries.

“She’s got the whole country in a stranglehold,” said Bisbee resident Gretchen Baer, who attended the protest, referring to the fact that Sinema is one of two Democratic holdouts in the Senate who are blocking that key piece of President Biden’s agenda. “This is not just some local politician that we don’t like for whatever reasons. This is somebody who on a global level is stopping positive change.”

As guests entered the wedding, they were handed little American flags, and the ceremony began with them singing the Star Spangled Banner.

Protestors outside the walls of the venue agreed to be quiet once the ceremony started, after a woman who said she was the bride’s mother was seen pleading, on the video, that they not ruin her daughter’s wedding, while some protesters shouted at her.

But one man who walked by and heard Sinema was inside had something to say. “Stop taking corporate money,” he yelled over the wall. “Total corruption of our government. Total sell out. Totally unacceptable.”

“Keep laughing,” he says on the video, as it shows Sinema inside the walls smiling and dancing with wedding guests.

Baer said Sinema and the other guests could definitely hear the man outside, as his voice boomed over everything else.

Baer and other people in Bisbee said that during a dinner with the wedding party, Sinema was wearing a jacket that said “Go sit on a cactus,” reminiscent of photos of her that went viral in April wearing a ring that said “F— off.”

“In all the years that Kyrsten Sinema has been representing us, she’s never come to Bisbee, never had any interest, never done one thing, never reached out in any way, shape or form,” Baer said. “This was our opportunity to speak up, so we took it.”

'SNL' takes more jabs at Sen. Kyrsten Sinema in latest episode

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema was the punchline of several jokes during "Saturday Night Live" skits that aired Oct. 23.

Sinema has been making headlines lately, along with Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, after the two Democrats held back from voting in favor of President Biden's multi-trillion-dollar infrastructure bill. 

During Saturday's "SNL" cold open, host Jason Sudeikis played one of three versions of Biden alongside comedians James Austin Johnson and Alex Moffat. About halfway through the skit, Sudeikis, acting as Biden when he was vice president, jokes that Sen. Sinema "sounds like a 'Star Wars' character." 

Sinema was also name-dropped during the popular "Weekend Update" segment of the show, with co-host Michael Che poking fun at her decision to not support "raising taxes on the wealthy to pay for Biden's agenda."

"Finally, someone speaking up for billionaires," Che said, with noticeable sarcasm. 

This is not the first time "SNL" has used Sinema as joke material, as longtime cast member Cecily Strong portrayed the U.S. senator earlier this month when the show aired the first episode of its 47th season. 

Tim Steller's opinion: Sinema needs to say where she stands on key proposals

People have been bothering Sen. Kyrsten Sinema.

Harassing her.

Even committing a crime against her!

You may have heard such descriptions if you’ve been paying attention to the news or social media the last few days. Sinema, a Democrat, continues to withhold support for the Biden reconciliation bill that would cost around $350 billion a year for 10 years — $3.5 trillion total. That has made Sinema the center of attention, where she appeared to like to be until now.

Now people aren’t just writing angry editorials or mocking her on Saturday Night Live, as they did over the weekend. They’re getting in her face. Getting personal.

This became a big deal on Sunday, when a group of activists for immigrant rights from the group Lucha AZ gathered outside a classroom where she was teaching at Arizona State University. They even followed her into the bathroom, demanding she take a stand for legalization of undocumented people.

Later, a woman, Karina Ruiz, politely confronted Sinema on a flight to Washington D.C., and the senator wouldn’t even look up to respond. Others greeted her with protests at the airport there. She didn’t respond.

Sure, following her into the bathroom crossed a line. It may even have been illegal, because videotaping a person in a bathroom without their permission is a crime in Arizona.

But honestly, these are minor points in the bigger context.

The real question is the issue these activists were pressing Sinema on: What exactly does she stand for?

She has positioned herself as a wily negotiator, withholding a vote her party depends on to advocate for smaller spending increases. But she says almost nothing publicly except that she won’t “negotiate in public.”

It’s almost as if she’s become such a creature of Washington that she thinks her real obligations are to the people and the process there, not to the people here.

Only a creature of Washington would define centrism, or pragmatism, as finding a midway point between the parties’ positions.

In real life, the positions that Sinema appears to be taking are outliers relative to public opinion — in that sense, neither pragmatic nor centrist.

The worst is her apparent opposition, reported by Politico, to the reconciliation bill’s language allowing Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices. This provision is supported by 85% to 90% of the people in Arizona and the United States, polling shows.

She has not stated her position on this publicly.

Sinema also opposes the Biden proposal to raise some taxes on the wealthy and on corporations to pay for the plan, the New York Times reports. That taxing proposal is popular too.

Polling by the left-of-center Future Majority group shows that these tax proposals actually increase support in Arizona for Biden’s plan. For example, Future Majority’s polling found that support for the broad plan went from 54% in favor to 43% against to 63-33 in favor when respondents were told of the plan to impose a 2% wealth tax on households with net worth over $50 million.

She has not stated her position publicly.

On important planks involving immigration, climate change and the expansion of Medicare to cover vision, dental and hearing service, we don’t know where she stands.

In fact, despite the crucial position she’s assumed, she hasn’t talked publicly with Arizonans for a long time. She did have a fundraiser in Phoenix over the weekend though, and impolite activists shouted over the walls to make her hear them — until they were forced away by police.

Her spokeswoman, Hannah Hurley, told me in an email Tuesday evening that Sinema supports various goals, such as cheaper health care and prescription drugs, but would not reveal more specific positions.

“Given the size and scope of the proposal — and the lack of detailed legislative language, or even consensus between the Senate and House around several provisions — we are not offering detailed comments on any one proposed piece of the package.”

Sinema took great umbrage Friday when the House decided not to vote on a trillion-dollar infrastructure plan. Progressive Democrats refused to do so until they had reassurances about what would happen to the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill.

Sinema called that decision “inexcusable” and a betrayal of trust.

But when I talked with Rep. Raúl Grijalva on Tuesday, the Tucson Democrat, he said he opposed voting on the infrastructure bill because Sinema and others had made no commitment to proceed with the reconciliation bill.

“It’s up to her to tell us what she believes should be in there,” he said. “With this much attention comes some responsibility.”

Now, it’s worth mentioning Sen. Mark Kelly here — the other Democratic U.S. senator from Arizona, who has not had so much attention. He has also avoided taking some stands on important issues

But on some of these planks of the reconciliation bill, he’s stated his stand. On giving Medicare the ability to negotiate prescription drug prices, on expanding Medicare coverage to dental and other services, on extending a path to citizenship for DACA recipients, he’s a clear yes. He's also voiced some opposition to the Trump tax cuts, some of which could be reversed under the Biden proposal. 

But of course Kelly has not been at the center of negotiations or a leading critic of the reconciliation bill, as Sinema has.

If you’re going to put yourself in that position of power, and if you’re going to claim to be a centrist voting in Arizona’s best interest, then you need to be prepared to explain where you stand and why, especially on popular proposals like the prescription-drug plan.

Maybe you shouldn’t have to explain in the bathroom, but just about anywhere else.

Stephen Colbert rips into Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema on Late Show

In Thursday night's "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert," the late-night host took several jabs at U.S. Senator Kyrsten Sinema, one of two Democrats in the Senate not backing President Biden's $3.5 trillion bill to reshape the economy.

Sinema and Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who say the bill is too big, play critical roles in the passing of Biden's "build back better" plan, as there is no Republican support of the bill in the Senate. 

Colbert's remarks about Sinema and Manchin start around the 2:30 mark of his opening monologue from the Sept. 30 "Late Show" that aired last night.

Colbert also featured an edited scene from the 1975 Al Pacino movie “Dog Day Afternoon," using voiceovers to mock Sinema's "stand-off" with lawmakers.

On #LSSC tonight: Sen. Kyrsten Sinema can’t make up her mind. pic.twitter.com/yXURaXegEt

— The Late Show (@colbertlateshow) October 1, 2021

 

Political Notebook: Sinema faces new backlash, this time over prescription-drug position

Democratic U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema is facing another big backlash from the side that supported her in the 2018 election.

The main source of anger this time: her opposition to a plan to reduce prescription drug prices that is a key part of the Biden administration’s $3.5 trillion spending proposal.

It came out in a Politico story published Sunday that Sinema told Biden administration officials during a negotiating session last week that she opposes their prescription drug proposal. She also opposes a pared-down version offered in the House.

Giving Medicare the right to negotiate prescription drug prices not only would be key to paying for the spending proposal, because it is projected to save around $500 billion, but also is very popular with the public. A Kaiser Family Foundation poll from May found that 88% of respondents favored the action the Biden administration is proposing.

And Sinema herself campaigned for U.S. Senate in 2018 on reducing prescription drug prices.

After the Politico story came out, critics noted Sinema is one of the pharmaceutical industry’s biggest recipients of donations, a relationship that has gone on since she was in the House.

Salon reported that she has received a total of about $750,000 in campaign donations from the pharmaceutical and medical-device industries. More than $120,000 came from pharmaceutical industry donations in 2019 and 2020, Salon reported.

And the Daily Poster website reported that the Center Forward Political Action Committee, which has received large donations from the pharmaceutical industry, put out TV ads and sent out mailers supporting Sinema in the week before she objected to the prescription-drug provision.

Tucson physician Dr. Cadey Harrel, who leads the Committee to Protect Healthcare in Arizona, sent a letter signed so far by 150 other doctors and health professionals demanding that Sinema “put people’s lives ahead of the profits of pharmaceutical corporations.”

“As medical professionals who aim to prevent harm and promote the health and safety of our patients, we urge you to live up to your promises and support current proposals in Congress to reduce the high cost of prescription drugs,” the letter says.

Sinema’s office told Politico she will not comment on the details of the ongoing negotiation.

— Tim Steller

Attorney general goes anti-vax

In a speech at the Quail Creek Republican Club, Attorney General Mark Brnovich appeared to question the point of getting vaccines for COVID-19.

Brnovich, who is running for U.S. Senate, spoke to the Republican club in the Sahuarita subdivision on Sept. 17.

A leaked audio recording of his comments, broadcast by KPHO TV Channel 5 in Phoenix, showed Brnovich denigrating the vaccine as seemingly useless.

“If you can get COVID after you’ve had the vaccine and you can still spread it, then what’s the point of the vaccine?” he asked the crowd, which responded with cheers.

Asked by reporter Dennis Welch to explain the comments, Brnovich did not address them directly but called the recording “misleading,” Welch reported.

The vaccine minimizes the likelihood of severe COVID-19 disease or hospitalization in vaccinated people. From March through August, unvaccinated people made up more than 90% of those hospitalized for COVID-19 and those killed by COVID-19 in Arizona.

However, opposing vaccine mandates and even the vaccine itself has become a strong current of opinion in the Republican Party. Brnovich, who is running for the GOP nomination, has refused to say whether he is vaccinated.

— Tim Steller

Anti-Prop. 206 campaign forms

A new political action committee has formed in opposition to the ballot measure to raise Tucson’s minimum wage to $15 an hour.

The measure, Prop. 206, would gradually raise the city’s minimum wage to $15 an hour by January 2025 and establish a new labor department within the city to enforce the initiative’s components. A new group, “No on 206,” is starting to raise money to encourage voters to reject the initiative.

The PAC filed its statement of organization with the City Clerk’s Office on Aug. 31, listing its chairpersons as Jesse Lugo, a longtime local businessman, and Carlos Ruiz, owner of the stainless-steel supplier HT Metals.

Ruiz said the campaign is starting to receive donations. He wouldn’t get into specifics on the PAC’s communication strategy but said the group will engage in “a traditional campaign to educate the public on the detrimental effects” of the minimum-wage proposal.

The group has yet to issue any campaign spending reports, but Ruiz said “everything will be filed properly.”

The new PAC will be up against a longstanding campaign by the Fight for $15 group that has already raised $80,000 and won prominent allies in City Hall, including Mayor Regina Romero.

— Nicole Ludden

Sinema approached by Tucson constituent over 'Build Back Better' plan

For the second time in a month, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema was publicly confronted in an airport and questioned about her stance on President Biden's "Build Back Better" infrastructure bill. 

In a viral video posted Oct. 25 on Twitter, a woman who says she is a constituent from Tucson approaches Sinema as she walks alongside Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina. 

Once again @kyrstensinema ignores concerned advocate fighting for healthcare for her family in Arizona. #BuildBackBetter pic.twitter.com/GK5t5mHCuc

— People’s Watch (@Peoples_Watch_) October 25, 2021

Sinema does not answer the woman's questions but at one point tells her, "Please don't touch me."

The woman asks Sinema questions about meeting with constituents to discuss the "Build Back Better" plan and the senator's actions on climate change. 

"Every single year in Arizona it's getting hotter and hotter," the woman says, "People are suffering, your constituents are suffering. What are you going to do about climate change?"

In the video, which now has over 2 million views, Sinema apologizes to Sen. Scott as the woman follows the two through the airport, saying, "Sorry about this."

Earlier this month, a day after being approached by activists at Arizona State University and followed into a bathroom, a video posted on Twitter showed Sinema being confronted by protesters and activists at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema just arrived at DCA, where a small number of protestors were waiting. They asked her what she would cut from the larger human infrastructure package. Sinema did not answer. pic.twitter.com/4EXCGDxwIl

— Kyle Stewart (@KyleAlexStewart) October 4, 2021

Similarly, Sinema was asked questions about her lack of support for Biden's trillion-dollar plan and does not respond as she speaks on her cell phone.

Meanwhile, Sinema became the subject of more viral social media posts this week after the Arizona senator wore a sleeveless jean jacket while presiding over the U.S. Senate.

Internet users criticized her outfit, saying that it was "unprofessional attire" and a "ploy to get attention." 

A viral tweet calling Sinema's denim vest an "Aaron Neville Halloween costume" was reposted by the R&B singer, who said "I believe I wore it better."

I believe I wore it better @BobMehr @SenatorSinema https://t.co/5afXX88BZL

— Aaron Neville (@aaronneville) October 27, 2021

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema officiated wedding where some guests dressed in Native American costumes

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema officiated a wedding in Bisbee over the weekend where costumed guests included a couple of people wearing Native American costumes with full headdresses and face paint.

Sinema danced next to a person dressed as a unicorn at the wedding, while protestors marched outside and one passerby yelled that she was a corrupt sell-out, a video posted on YouTube shows.

“Senator Sinema officiated a personal friend’s wedding at which a small group of activists protested during the private ceremony,” said Sinema’s spokesperson Hannah Hurley in an email. “While the Senator knows the bride and groom, she does not know and did not interact with the wedding guests who wore disrespectful and racist costumes to the ceremony, and she strongly condemns such behavior.”

The video, taken by a protester, shows Sinema through an opening in the wall where the wedding took place smiling and dancing while a man outside yells “Sinema is taking corporate money to destroy us all.”

About 20 protesters marched outside The Courtyard, a venue in downtown Bisbee, where the wedding was taking place. The wedding schedule said costumes were welcome.

Bisbee resident Molly Harrico, who was at the protest, said she was “shocked and appalled and disgusted by the white people who walked into the wedding party dressed in full Native American regalia.”

Harrico attended the protest because of Sinema’s opposition to the Biden administration’s Reconciliation Bill, which contains climate change provisions the Bisbee resident particularly supports.

“It felt to me like an opportunity to let it be known that we are not happy with how she’s conducting herself,” Harrico said. “As a representative who works for the people, she certainly is not doing that. It feels to me like she’s just an obstructionist basically.”

Hurley responded, "As she has said publicly, Senator Sinema is excited for the opportunity in the legislation to pass policies addressing our changing climate."

Several people at the protest who spoke with the Star said they saw it as an opportunity to have their voices be heard by an elected official who they find inaccessible, including Anne Teters, a Bisbee business owner.

“I’ve been very dismayed and horrified and astonished and disgusted by the way Kyrsten Sinema keeps blocking legislation that we need like to lower prescription drug prices or to raise minimum wage or to protect the climate — all these things we obviously need for the future, for the present,” Teters said.

Sinema, elected to the Senate as an Arizona Democrat in November 2018, has received criticism for not getting behind key pieces of the Democrats’ agenda, including the $3.5 trillion bill. It would have included funding for clean energy and policies to combat climate change as well as free community college, funding for child care and universal pre-K, medicare expansion, extending the child tax-credit, cutting prescription drug prices, paid family and medical leave and more.

The New York Times reported that Sinema was scheduled earlier this month for a fundraiser with business lobbying groups who oppose the bill. Salon reported that she has received a total of about $750,000 in campaign donations from the pharmaceutical and medical-device industries.

“She’s got the whole country in a stranglehold,” said Bisbee resident Gretchen Baer, who attended the protest, referring to the fact that Sinema is one of two Democratic holdouts in the Senate who are blocking that key piece of President Biden’s agenda. “This is not just some local politician that we don’t like for whatever reasons. This is somebody who on a global level is stopping positive change.”

As guests entered the wedding, they were handed little American flags, and the ceremony began with them singing the Star Spangled Banner.

Protestors outside the walls of the venue agreed to be quiet once the ceremony started, after a woman who said she was the bride’s mother was seen pleading, on the video, that they not ruin her daughter’s wedding, while some protesters shouted at her.

But one man who walked by and heard Sinema was inside had something to say. “Stop taking corporate money,” he yelled over the wall. “Total corruption of our government. Total sell out. Totally unacceptable.”

“Keep laughing,” he says on the video, as it shows Sinema inside the walls smiling and dancing with wedding guests.

Baer said Sinema and the other guests could definitely hear the man outside, as his voice boomed over everything else.

Baer and other people in Bisbee said that during a dinner with the wedding party, Sinema was wearing a jacket that said “Go sit on a cactus,” reminiscent of photos of her that went viral in April wearing a ring that said “F— off.”

“In all the years that Kyrsten Sinema has been representing us, she’s never come to Bisbee, never had any interest, never done one thing, never reached out in any way, shape or form,” Baer said. “This was our opportunity to speak up, so we took it.”

'SNL' takes more jabs at Sen. Kyrsten Sinema in latest episode

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema was the punchline of several jokes during "Saturday Night Live" skits that aired Oct. 23.

Sinema has been making headlines lately, along with Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, after the two Democrats held back from voting in favor of President Biden's multi-trillion-dollar infrastructure bill. 

During Saturday's "SNL" cold open, host Jason Sudeikis played one of three versions of Biden alongside comedians James Austin Johnson and Alex Moffat. About halfway through the skit, Sudeikis, acting as Biden when he was vice president, jokes that Sen. Sinema "sounds like a 'Star Wars' character." 

Sinema was also name-dropped during the popular "Weekend Update" segment of the show, with co-host Michael Che poking fun at her decision to not support "raising taxes on the wealthy to pay for Biden's agenda."

"Finally, someone speaking up for billionaires," Che said, with noticeable sarcasm. 

This is not the first time "SNL" has used Sinema as joke material, as longtime cast member Cecily Strong portrayed the U.S. senator earlier this month when the show aired the first episode of its 47th season. 

Tim Steller's opinion: Sinema needs to say where she stands on key proposals

People have been bothering Sen. Kyrsten Sinema.

Harassing her.

Even committing a crime against her!

You may have heard such descriptions if you’ve been paying attention to the news or social media the last few days. Sinema, a Democrat, continues to withhold support for the Biden reconciliation bill that would cost around $350 billion a year for 10 years — $3.5 trillion total. That has made Sinema the center of attention, where she appeared to like to be until now.

Now people aren’t just writing angry editorials or mocking her on Saturday Night Live, as they did over the weekend. They’re getting in her face. Getting personal.

This became a big deal on Sunday, when a group of activists for immigrant rights from the group Lucha AZ gathered outside a classroom where she was teaching at Arizona State University. They even followed her into the bathroom, demanding she take a stand for legalization of undocumented people.

Later, a woman, Karina Ruiz, politely confronted Sinema on a flight to Washington D.C., and the senator wouldn’t even look up to respond. Others greeted her with protests at the airport there. She didn’t respond.

Sure, following her into the bathroom crossed a line. It may even have been illegal, because videotaping a person in a bathroom without their permission is a crime in Arizona.

But honestly, these are minor points in the bigger context.

The real question is the issue these activists were pressing Sinema on: What exactly does she stand for?

She has positioned herself as a wily negotiator, withholding a vote her party depends on to advocate for smaller spending increases. But she says almost nothing publicly except that she won’t “negotiate in public.”

It’s almost as if she’s become such a creature of Washington that she thinks her real obligations are to the people and the process there, not to the people here.

Only a creature of Washington would define centrism, or pragmatism, as finding a midway point between the parties’ positions.

In real life, the positions that Sinema appears to be taking are outliers relative to public opinion — in that sense, neither pragmatic nor centrist.

The worst is her apparent opposition, reported by Politico, to the reconciliation bill’s language allowing Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices. This provision is supported by 85% to 90% of the people in Arizona and the United States, polling shows.

She has not stated her position on this publicly.

Sinema also opposes the Biden proposal to raise some taxes on the wealthy and on corporations to pay for the plan, the New York Times reports. That taxing proposal is popular too.

Polling by the left-of-center Future Majority group shows that these tax proposals actually increase support in Arizona for Biden’s plan. For example, Future Majority’s polling found that support for the broad plan went from 54% in favor to 43% against to 63-33 in favor when respondents were told of the plan to impose a 2% wealth tax on households with net worth over $50 million.

She has not stated her position publicly.

On important planks involving immigration, climate change and the expansion of Medicare to cover vision, dental and hearing service, we don’t know where she stands.

In fact, despite the crucial position she’s assumed, she hasn’t talked publicly with Arizonans for a long time. She did have a fundraiser in Phoenix over the weekend though, and impolite activists shouted over the walls to make her hear them — until they were forced away by police.

Her spokeswoman, Hannah Hurley, told me in an email Tuesday evening that Sinema supports various goals, such as cheaper health care and prescription drugs, but would not reveal more specific positions.

“Given the size and scope of the proposal — and the lack of detailed legislative language, or even consensus between the Senate and House around several provisions — we are not offering detailed comments on any one proposed piece of the package.”

Sinema took great umbrage Friday when the House decided not to vote on a trillion-dollar infrastructure plan. Progressive Democrats refused to do so until they had reassurances about what would happen to the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill.

Sinema called that decision “inexcusable” and a betrayal of trust.

But when I talked with Rep. Raúl Grijalva on Tuesday, the Tucson Democrat, he said he opposed voting on the infrastructure bill because Sinema and others had made no commitment to proceed with the reconciliation bill.

“It’s up to her to tell us what she believes should be in there,” he said. “With this much attention comes some responsibility.”

Now, it’s worth mentioning Sen. Mark Kelly here — the other Democratic U.S. senator from Arizona, who has not had so much attention. He has also avoided taking some stands on important issues

But on some of these planks of the reconciliation bill, he’s stated his stand. On giving Medicare the ability to negotiate prescription drug prices, on expanding Medicare coverage to dental and other services, on extending a path to citizenship for DACA recipients, he’s a clear yes. He's also voiced some opposition to the Trump tax cuts, some of which could be reversed under the Biden proposal. 

But of course Kelly has not been at the center of negotiations or a leading critic of the reconciliation bill, as Sinema has.

If you’re going to put yourself in that position of power, and if you’re going to claim to be a centrist voting in Arizona’s best interest, then you need to be prepared to explain where you stand and why, especially on popular proposals like the prescription-drug plan.

Maybe you shouldn’t have to explain in the bathroom, but just about anywhere else.

Stephen Colbert rips into Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema on Late Show

In Thursday night's "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert," the late-night host took several jabs at U.S. Senator Kyrsten Sinema, one of two Democrats in the Senate not backing President Biden's $3.5 trillion bill to reshape the economy.

Sinema and Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who say the bill is too big, play critical roles in the passing of Biden's "build back better" plan, as there is no Republican support of the bill in the Senate. 

Colbert's remarks about Sinema and Manchin start around the 2:30 mark of his opening monologue from the Sept. 30 "Late Show" that aired last night.

Colbert also featured an edited scene from the 1975 Al Pacino movie “Dog Day Afternoon," using voiceovers to mock Sinema's "stand-off" with lawmakers.

On #LSSC tonight: Sen. Kyrsten Sinema can’t make up her mind. pic.twitter.com/yXURaXegEt

— The Late Show (@colbertlateshow) October 1, 2021

 

Political Notebook: Sinema faces new backlash, this time over prescription-drug position

Democratic U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema is facing another big backlash from the side that supported her in the 2018 election.

The main source of anger this time: her opposition to a plan to reduce prescription drug prices that is a key part of the Biden administration’s $3.5 trillion spending proposal.

It came out in a Politico story published Sunday that Sinema told Biden administration officials during a negotiating session last week that she opposes their prescription drug proposal. She also opposes a pared-down version offered in the House.

Giving Medicare the right to negotiate prescription drug prices not only would be key to paying for the spending proposal, because it is projected to save around $500 billion, but also is very popular with the public. A Kaiser Family Foundation poll from May found that 88% of respondents favored the action the Biden administration is proposing.

And Sinema herself campaigned for U.S. Senate in 2018 on reducing prescription drug prices.

After the Politico story came out, critics noted Sinema is one of the pharmaceutical industry’s biggest recipients of donations, a relationship that has gone on since she was in the House.

Salon reported that she has received a total of about $750,000 in campaign donations from the pharmaceutical and medical-device industries. More than $120,000 came from pharmaceutical industry donations in 2019 and 2020, Salon reported.

And the Daily Poster website reported that the Center Forward Political Action Committee, which has received large donations from the pharmaceutical industry, put out TV ads and sent out mailers supporting Sinema in the week before she objected to the prescription-drug provision.

Tucson physician Dr. Cadey Harrel, who leads the Committee to Protect Healthcare in Arizona, sent a letter signed so far by 150 other doctors and health professionals demanding that Sinema “put people’s lives ahead of the profits of pharmaceutical corporations.”

“As medical professionals who aim to prevent harm and promote the health and safety of our patients, we urge you to live up to your promises and support current proposals in Congress to reduce the high cost of prescription drugs,” the letter says.

Sinema’s office told Politico she will not comment on the details of the ongoing negotiation.

— Tim Steller

Attorney general goes anti-vax

In a speech at the Quail Creek Republican Club, Attorney General Mark Brnovich appeared to question the point of getting vaccines for COVID-19.

Brnovich, who is running for U.S. Senate, spoke to the Republican club in the Sahuarita subdivision on Sept. 17.

A leaked audio recording of his comments, broadcast by KPHO TV Channel 5 in Phoenix, showed Brnovich denigrating the vaccine as seemingly useless.

“If you can get COVID after you’ve had the vaccine and you can still spread it, then what’s the point of the vaccine?” he asked the crowd, which responded with cheers.

Asked by reporter Dennis Welch to explain the comments, Brnovich did not address them directly but called the recording “misleading,” Welch reported.

The vaccine minimizes the likelihood of severe COVID-19 disease or hospitalization in vaccinated people. From March through August, unvaccinated people made up more than 90% of those hospitalized for COVID-19 and those killed by COVID-19 in Arizona.

However, opposing vaccine mandates and even the vaccine itself has become a strong current of opinion in the Republican Party. Brnovich, who is running for the GOP nomination, has refused to say whether he is vaccinated.

— Tim Steller

Anti-Prop. 206 campaign forms

A new political action committee has formed in opposition to the ballot measure to raise Tucson’s minimum wage to $15 an hour.

The measure, Prop. 206, would gradually raise the city’s minimum wage to $15 an hour by January 2025 and establish a new labor department within the city to enforce the initiative’s components. A new group, “No on 206,” is starting to raise money to encourage voters to reject the initiative.

The PAC filed its statement of organization with the City Clerk’s Office on Aug. 31, listing its chairpersons as Jesse Lugo, a longtime local businessman, and Carlos Ruiz, owner of the stainless-steel supplier HT Metals.

Ruiz said the campaign is starting to receive donations. He wouldn’t get into specifics on the PAC’s communication strategy but said the group will engage in “a traditional campaign to educate the public on the detrimental effects” of the minimum-wage proposal.

The group has yet to issue any campaign spending reports, but Ruiz said “everything will be filed properly.”

The new PAC will be up against a longstanding campaign by the Fight for $15 group that has already raised $80,000 and won prominent allies in City Hall, including Mayor Regina Romero.

— Nicole Ludden

For the second time in a month, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema was publicly confronted in an airport and questioned about her stance on President Biden's "Build Back Better" infrastructure bill. 

In a viral video posted Oct. 25 on Twitter, a woman who says she is a constituent from Tucson approaches Sinema as she walks alongside Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina. 

Once again @kyrstensinema ignores concerned advocate fighting for healthcare for her family in Arizona. #BuildBackBetter pic.twitter.com/GK5t5mHCuc

— People’s Watch (@Peoples_Watch_) October 25, 2021

Sinema does not answer the woman's questions but at one point tells her, "Please don't touch me."

The woman asks Sinema questions about meeting with constituents to discuss the "Build Back Better" plan and the senator's actions on climate change. 

"Every single year in Arizona it's getting hotter and hotter," the woman says, "People are suffering, your constituents are suffering. What are you going to do about climate change?"

In the video, which now has over 2 million views, Sinema apologizes to Sen. Scott as the woman follows the two through the airport, saying, "Sorry about this."

Earlier this month, a day after being approached by activists at Arizona State University and followed into a bathroom, a video posted on Twitter showed Sinema being confronted by protesters and activists at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.

Similarly, Sinema was asked questions about her lack of support for Biden's trillion-dollar plan and does not respond as she speaks on her cell phone.

Meanwhile, Sinema became the subject of more viral social media posts this week after the Arizona senator wore a sleeveless jean jacket while presiding over the U.S. Senate.

Internet users criticized her outfit, saying that it was "unprofessional attire" and a "ploy to get attention." 

A viral tweet calling Sinema's denim vest an "Aaron Neville Halloween costume" was reposted by the R&B singer, who said "I believe I wore it better."

I believe I wore it better @BobMehr @SenatorSinema https://t.co/5afXX88BZL

— Aaron Neville (@aaronneville) October 27, 2021

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema officiated a wedding in Bisbee over the weekend where costumed guests included a couple of people wearing Native American costumes with full headdresses and face paint.

Sinema danced next to a person dressed as a unicorn at the wedding, while protestors marched outside and one passerby yelled that she was a corrupt sell-out, a video posted on YouTube shows.

“Senator Sinema officiated a personal friend’s wedding at which a small group of activists protested during the private ceremony,” said Sinema’s spokesperson Hannah Hurley in an email. “While the Senator knows the bride and groom, she does not know and did not interact with the wedding guests who wore disrespectful and racist costumes to the ceremony, and she strongly condemns such behavior.”

The video, taken by a protester, shows Sinema through an opening in the wall where the wedding took place smiling and dancing while a man outside yells “Sinema is taking corporate money to destroy us all.”

About 20 protesters marched outside The Courtyard, a venue in downtown Bisbee, where the wedding was taking place. The wedding schedule said costumes were welcome.

Bisbee resident Molly Harrico, who was at the protest, said she was “shocked and appalled and disgusted by the white people who walked into the wedding party dressed in full Native American regalia.”

Harrico attended the protest because of Sinema’s opposition to the Biden administration’s Reconciliation Bill, which contains climate change provisions the Bisbee resident particularly supports.

“It felt to me like an opportunity to let it be known that we are not happy with how she’s conducting herself,” Harrico said. “As a representative who works for the people, she certainly is not doing that. It feels to me like she’s just an obstructionist basically.”

Hurley responded, "As she has said publicly, Senator Sinema is excited for the opportunity in the legislation to pass policies addressing our changing climate."

Several people at the protest who spoke with the Star said they saw it as an opportunity to have their voices be heard by an elected official who they find inaccessible, including Anne Teters, a Bisbee business owner.

“I’ve been very dismayed and horrified and astonished and disgusted by the way Kyrsten Sinema keeps blocking legislation that we need like to lower prescription drug prices or to raise minimum wage or to protect the climate — all these things we obviously need for the future, for the present,” Teters said.

Sinema, elected to the Senate as an Arizona Democrat in November 2018, has received criticism for not getting behind key pieces of the Democrats’ agenda, including the $3.5 trillion bill. It would have included funding for clean energy and policies to combat climate change as well as free community college, funding for child care and universal pre-K, medicare expansion, extending the child tax-credit, cutting prescription drug prices, paid family and medical leave and more.

The New York Times reported that Sinema was scheduled earlier this month for a fundraiser with business lobbying groups who oppose the bill. Salon reported that she has received a total of about $750,000 in campaign donations from the pharmaceutical and medical-device industries.

“She’s got the whole country in a stranglehold,” said Bisbee resident Gretchen Baer, who attended the protest, referring to the fact that Sinema is one of two Democratic holdouts in the Senate who are blocking that key piece of President Biden’s agenda. “This is not just some local politician that we don’t like for whatever reasons. This is somebody who on a global level is stopping positive change.”

As guests entered the wedding, they were handed little American flags, and the ceremony began with them singing the Star Spangled Banner.

Protestors outside the walls of the venue agreed to be quiet once the ceremony started, after a woman who said she was the bride’s mother was seen pleading, on the video, that they not ruin her daughter’s wedding, while some protesters shouted at her.

But one man who walked by and heard Sinema was inside had something to say. “Stop taking corporate money,” he yelled over the wall. “Total corruption of our government. Total sell out. Totally unacceptable.”

“Keep laughing,” he says on the video, as it shows Sinema inside the walls smiling and dancing with wedding guests.

Baer said Sinema and the other guests could definitely hear the man outside, as his voice boomed over everything else.

Baer and other people in Bisbee said that during a dinner with the wedding party, Sinema was wearing a jacket that said “Go sit on a cactus,” reminiscent of photos of her that went viral in April wearing a ring that said “F— off.”

“In all the years that Kyrsten Sinema has been representing us, she’s never come to Bisbee, never had any interest, never done one thing, never reached out in any way, shape or form,” Baer said. “This was our opportunity to speak up, so we took it.”

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema was the punchline of several jokes during "Saturday Night Live" skits that aired Oct. 23.

Sinema has been making headlines lately, along with Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, after the two Democrats held back from voting in favor of President Biden's multi-trillion-dollar infrastructure bill. 

During Saturday's "SNL" cold open, host Jason Sudeikis played one of three versions of Biden alongside comedians James Austin Johnson and Alex Moffat. About halfway through the skit, Sudeikis, acting as Biden when he was vice president, jokes that Sen. Sinema "sounds like a 'Star Wars' character." 

Sinema was also name-dropped during the popular "Weekend Update" segment of the show, with co-host Michael Che poking fun at her decision to not support "raising taxes on the wealthy to pay for Biden's agenda."

"Finally, someone speaking up for billionaires," Che said, with noticeable sarcasm. 

This is not the first time "SNL" has used Sinema as joke material, as longtime cast member Cecily Strong portrayed the U.S. senator earlier this month when the show aired the first episode of its 47th season. 

People have been bothering Sen. Kyrsten Sinema.

Harassing her.

Even committing a crime against her!

You may have heard such descriptions if you’ve been paying attention to the news or social media the last few days. Sinema, a Democrat, continues to withhold support for the Biden reconciliation bill that would cost around $350 billion a year for 10 years — $3.5 trillion total. That has made Sinema the center of attention, where she appeared to like to be until now.

Now people aren’t just writing angry editorials or mocking her on Saturday Night Live, as they did over the weekend. They’re getting in her face. Getting personal.

This became a big deal on Sunday, when a group of activists for immigrant rights from the group Lucha AZ gathered outside a classroom where she was teaching at Arizona State University. They even followed her into the bathroom, demanding she take a stand for legalization of undocumented people.

Later, a woman, Karina Ruiz, politely confronted Sinema on a flight to Washington D.C., and the senator wouldn’t even look up to respond. Others greeted her with protests at the airport there. She didn’t respond.

Sure, following her into the bathroom crossed a line. It may even have been illegal, because videotaping a person in a bathroom without their permission is a crime in Arizona.

But honestly, these are minor points in the bigger context.

The real question is the issue these activists were pressing Sinema on: What exactly does she stand for?

She has positioned herself as a wily negotiator, withholding a vote her party depends on to advocate for smaller spending increases. But she says almost nothing publicly except that she won’t “negotiate in public.”

It’s almost as if she’s become such a creature of Washington that she thinks her real obligations are to the people and the process there, not to the people here.

Only a creature of Washington would define centrism, or pragmatism, as finding a midway point between the parties’ positions.

In real life, the positions that Sinema appears to be taking are outliers relative to public opinion — in that sense, neither pragmatic nor centrist.

The worst is her apparent opposition, reported by Politico, to the reconciliation bill’s language allowing Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices. This provision is supported by 85% to 90% of the people in Arizona and the United States, polling shows.

She has not stated her position on this publicly.

Sinema also opposes the Biden proposal to raise some taxes on the wealthy and on corporations to pay for the plan, the New York Times reports. That taxing proposal is popular too.

Polling by the left-of-center Future Majority group shows that these tax proposals actually increase support in Arizona for Biden’s plan. For example, Future Majority’s polling found that support for the broad plan went from 54% in favor to 43% against to 63-33 in favor when respondents were told of the plan to impose a 2% wealth tax on households with net worth over $50 million.

She has not stated her position publicly.

On important planks involving immigration, climate change and the expansion of Medicare to cover vision, dental and hearing service, we don’t know where she stands.

In fact, despite the crucial position she’s assumed, she hasn’t talked publicly with Arizonans for a long time. She did have a fundraiser in Phoenix over the weekend though, and impolite activists shouted over the walls to make her hear them — until they were forced away by police.

Her spokeswoman, Hannah Hurley, told me in an email Tuesday evening that Sinema supports various goals, such as cheaper health care and prescription drugs, but would not reveal more specific positions.

“Given the size and scope of the proposal — and the lack of detailed legislative language, or even consensus between the Senate and House around several provisions — we are not offering detailed comments on any one proposed piece of the package.”

Sinema took great umbrage Friday when the House decided not to vote on a trillion-dollar infrastructure plan. Progressive Democrats refused to do so until they had reassurances about what would happen to the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill.

Sinema called that decision “inexcusable” and a betrayal of trust.

But when I talked with Rep. Raúl Grijalva on Tuesday, the Tucson Democrat, he said he opposed voting on the infrastructure bill because Sinema and others had made no commitment to proceed with the reconciliation bill.

“It’s up to her to tell us what she believes should be in there,” he said. “With this much attention comes some responsibility.”

Now, it’s worth mentioning Sen. Mark Kelly here — the other Democratic U.S. senator from Arizona, who has not had so much attention. He has also avoided taking some stands on important issues

But on some of these planks of the reconciliation bill, he’s stated his stand. On giving Medicare the ability to negotiate prescription drug prices, on expanding Medicare coverage to dental and other services, on extending a path to citizenship for DACA recipients, he’s a clear yes. He's also voiced some opposition to the Trump tax cuts, some of which could be reversed under the Biden proposal. 

But of course Kelly has not been at the center of negotiations or a leading critic of the reconciliation bill, as Sinema has.

If you’re going to put yourself in that position of power, and if you’re going to claim to be a centrist voting in Arizona’s best interest, then you need to be prepared to explain where you stand and why, especially on popular proposals like the prescription-drug plan.

Maybe you shouldn’t have to explain in the bathroom, but just about anywhere else.

In Thursday night's "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert," the late-night host took several jabs at U.S. Senator Kyrsten Sinema, one of two Democrats in the Senate not backing President Biden's $3.5 trillion bill to reshape the economy.

Sinema and Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who say the bill is too big, play critical roles in the passing of Biden's "build back better" plan, as there is no Republican support of the bill in the Senate. 

Colbert's remarks about Sinema and Manchin start around the 2:30 mark of his opening monologue from the Sept. 30 "Late Show" that aired last night.

Colbert also featured an edited scene from the 1975 Al Pacino movie “Dog Day Afternoon," using voiceovers to mock Sinema's "stand-off" with lawmakers.

On #LSSC tonight: Sen. Kyrsten Sinema can’t make up her mind. pic.twitter.com/yXURaXegEt

— The Late Show (@colbertlateshow) October 1, 2021

Democratic U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema is facing another big backlash from the side that supported her in the 2018 election.

The main source of anger this time: her opposition to a plan to reduce prescription drug prices that is a key part of the Biden administration’s $3.5 trillion spending proposal.

It came out in a Politico story published Sunday that Sinema told Biden administration officials during a negotiating session last week that she opposes their prescription drug proposal. She also opposes a pared-down version offered in the House.

Giving Medicare the right to negotiate prescription drug prices not only would be key to paying for the spending proposal, because it is projected to save around $500 billion, but also is very popular with the public. A Kaiser Family Foundation poll from May found that 88% of respondents favored the action the Biden administration is proposing.

And Sinema herself campaigned for U.S. Senate in 2018 on reducing prescription drug prices.

After the Politico story came out, critics noted Sinema is one of the pharmaceutical industry’s biggest recipients of donations, a relationship that has gone on since she was in the House.

Salon reported that she has received a total of about $750,000 in campaign donations from the pharmaceutical and medical-device industries. More than $120,000 came from pharmaceutical industry donations in 2019 and 2020, Salon reported.

And the Daily Poster website reported that the Center Forward Political Action Committee, which has received large donations from the pharmaceutical industry, put out TV ads and sent out mailers supporting Sinema in the week before she objected to the prescription-drug provision.

Tucson physician Dr. Cadey Harrel, who leads the Committee to Protect Healthcare in Arizona, sent a letter signed so far by 150 other doctors and health professionals demanding that Sinema “put people’s lives ahead of the profits of pharmaceutical corporations.”

“As medical professionals who aim to prevent harm and promote the health and safety of our patients, we urge you to live up to your promises and support current proposals in Congress to reduce the high cost of prescription drugs,” the letter says.

Sinema’s office told Politico she will not comment on the details of the ongoing negotiation.

— Tim Steller

Attorney general goes anti-vax

In a speech at the Quail Creek Republican Club, Attorney General Mark Brnovich appeared to question the point of getting vaccines for COVID-19.

Brnovich, who is running for U.S. Senate, spoke to the Republican club in the Sahuarita subdivision on Sept. 17.

A leaked audio recording of his comments, broadcast by KPHO TV Channel 5 in Phoenix, showed Brnovich denigrating the vaccine as seemingly useless.

“If you can get COVID after you’ve had the vaccine and you can still spread it, then what’s the point of the vaccine?” he asked the crowd, which responded with cheers.

Asked by reporter Dennis Welch to explain the comments, Brnovich did not address them directly but called the recording “misleading,” Welch reported.

The vaccine minimizes the likelihood of severe COVID-19 disease or hospitalization in vaccinated people. From March through August, unvaccinated people made up more than 90% of those hospitalized for COVID-19 and those killed by COVID-19 in Arizona.

However, opposing vaccine mandates and even the vaccine itself has become a strong current of opinion in the Republican Party. Brnovich, who is running for the GOP nomination, has refused to say whether he is vaccinated.

— Tim Steller

Anti-Prop. 206 campaign forms

A new political action committee has formed in opposition to the ballot measure to raise Tucson’s minimum wage to $15 an hour.

The measure, Prop. 206, would gradually raise the city’s minimum wage to $15 an hour by January 2025 and establish a new labor department within the city to enforce the initiative’s components. A new group, “No on 206,” is starting to raise money to encourage voters to reject the initiative.

The PAC filed its statement of organization with the City Clerk’s Office on Aug. 31, listing its chairpersons as Jesse Lugo, a longtime local businessman, and Carlos Ruiz, owner of the stainless-steel supplier HT Metals.

Ruiz said the campaign is starting to receive donations. He wouldn’t get into specifics on the PAC’s communication strategy but said the group will engage in “a traditional campaign to educate the public on the detrimental effects” of the minimum-wage proposal.

The group has yet to issue any campaign spending reports, but Ruiz said “everything will be filed properly.”

The new PAC will be up against a longstanding campaign by the Fight for $15 group that has already raised $80,000 and won prominent allies in City Hall, including Mayor Regina Romero.

— Nicole Ludden