Like Mccain, Sinema reaches for bipartisanship
WASHINGTON — More than for her shock of purple hair or unpredictable votes, Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema is perhaps best known for doing the unthinkable in Washington: She spends time on the Republican side of the aisle.
Not only does she pass her days chatting up the Republican senators, she has been known to duck into their private GOP cloakroom — absolutely unheard of — and banter with GOP leadership. She and Senate Republican leader Mitch Mcconnell talk often by phone.
Sinema’s years in Congress have been a whirlwind of political style and perplexing substance, an antiwar liberal-turned-deal-making centrist who now finds herself at the highest levels of power.
A key negotiator of the bipartisan infrastructure compromise, she was among those President Joe Biden first called to make the deal — and then called on again as he worked furiously to salvage the agreement from collapse. A holdout to changing the Senate’s filibuster rules, she faces enormous pressure to act as voting rights in her own state and others hang in the balance.
“If anybody can pull this off it’s Kyrsten,” said David Lujan, a former Democratic colleague of Sinema’s in the Arizona statehouse. “She’s incredibly smart, so she can figure out where people’s commonalities are and get things done.”
The senator’s theory of the case of how to govern in Washington will be tested in the weeks ahead as Congress works to turn the infrastructure compromise into law and mounts a response to the Supreme Court decision upholding Arizona’s strict new voting rules.
She’s modeling her approach on the renegade style of Arizona Sen. John Mccain, who died in 2018 and was known for his willingness to reach across the aisle. But aspiring
to bold bipartisanship is challenging in the post-trump era of hardened political bunkers and fierce cultural tribalism. Many in her own party scoff at her overtures to the GOP and criticize her for not playing hardball.
Her name is now uttered alongside West Virginia’s Sen. Joe Manchin as the two Democrats standing in the way of changing the filibuster rules requiring 60 votes to advance legislation — a priority for liberals working to pass Biden’s agenda in the 50-50 Senate. This year she cast a procedural vote against raising the minimum wage and has opposed the climate change-focused Green New Deal, even though she’s not fully opposed to either policy.
She declined a request for an interview.
“It’s the easiest thing in the world for politicians to declare bipartisanship dead and line up on respective sides of a partisan battle,“she said in a statement. “What’s harder is getting out of our comfort zones, finding common ground with unlikely allies, and forming coalitions that can achieve durable, lasting results.”
Sinema arrived in Washington with a burst of energy and a swoosh of fashion. She quickly became known as one of the best vote counters in the House, on par with Speaker Nancy Pelosi, because of her visits to the other side of the aisle.
Her maiden speech in the Senate drew from Mccain’s farewell address, a marker of where she was headed. She changed the decadesold Senate dress code by simply wearing whatever she wants — and daring anyone to stop her. The purple wig was a nod to the coronavirus pandemic’s lockdown. (In off hours, she has been spotted wearing a ring with an expletive similar to “buzz off.”)
“People may debate her sincerity, but the truth is, she makes an active decision that she’s going to work well with other people — and I haven’t seen her slip up,” said Republican Rep. Patrick Mchenry of North Carolina, who served with her in the House.
Sinema’s status as a bipartisan leader fascinates those who’ve watched her long rise in Arizona politics, where she began as a lonely left-wing activist who worked for Ralph Nader’s 2000 Green Party presidential campaign and then slowly retooled herself into a moderate advocate of working across the aisle.
“Ideologically, it does surprise me,” Steven Yarbrough, a Republican who served 12 years with Sinema in the Arizona Legislature, said of her transformation. “But given how smart and driven she is, well, that doesn’t surprise me at all.”