Arizona’s Sinema bows out of US Senate race
PHOENIX — Senator
Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, the Democrat turned independent who cut bipartisan deals that cemented parts of President Biden’s agenda but also stymied some of her former party’s highest priorities, said Tuesday that she would not seek reelection.
Her announcement ended a year of speculation about her future in a politically competitive state.
It cleared the field for a traditional matchup in the highstakes battle for control of the Senate, between a more conventional Democrat, Representative Ruben Gallego, and the eventual Republican nominee.
“Because I choose civility, understanding, listening, working together to get stuff done, I will leave the Senate at the end of this year,” she said in a video announcement.
Sinema, a first-term senator who left the Democratic Party in 2022, faced potentially long odds in a three-way race for reelection as Democrats fight to maintain control of the Senate.
Recent polling found her trailing both Gallego and Kari Lake, the favorite for the Republican nomination who is an acolyte of former president Donald Trump and has championed his baseless election fraud claims.
Her decision to bow out now sets up a more direct showdown, likely between Gallego and Lake — though Mark Lamb, a sheriff, is also seeking the Republican nomination.
Senator Steve Daines of Montana, who heads Republicans’ Senate campaign committee, argued that Sinema’s decision not to run would boost Lake, who is endorsed by his National Republican Senatorial Committee.
“With recent polling showing Kyrsten Sinema pulling far more Republican voters than Democrat voters, her decision to retire improves Kari Lake’s opportunity to flip this seat,” Daines said in a statement.
But Stan Barnes, a former Republican legislator and lobbyist for Copper State Consulting Group, a Phoenix firm, said the advantage would go to the Democrats, whose votes might otherwise have been split between Sinema and Gallego.
“When it comes to the US Senate in Arizona, Democrats are mostly unified and Republicans are decidedly fractured,” Barnes said. “This means: advantage Gallego.”
NEW YORK TIMES
Parents of Wall St. reporter to attend Biden’s speech
The parents of Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter detained in Russia for nearly a year, will attend President Biden’s State of the Union speech on Thursday as guests of House Speaker Mike Johnson, Republican from Louisiana, his office said in a statement Wednesday.
“I’m honored to host Ella Milman and Mikhail Gershkovich for the State of the Union address,” Johnson said in the statement. “By hosting Evan’s parents, Congress will shine a spotlight on the unjust detention of their son. The United States must always stand for freedom of the press around the world, especially in places like Russia, where it is under assault. The Administration must bring Evan home.”
Members of Congress often bring notable guests to accompany them to State of the Union addresses.
In early March 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law banning what it deemed as “fake” news.
Days later, Gershkovich, a US citizen assigned to the Journal’s bureau in Moscow, was arrested by Russia’s Federal Security Service. It accused him of being a spy for the United States and gathering information about a Russian military enterprise but did not cite any evidence.
At the time, Gershkovich was on a reporting trip in Yekaterinburg, a city in the Urals, roughly 880 miles east of Moscow.
The Journal has forcefully denied the allegations as baseless, and US officials have said they are trying to persuade Russian officials to release him.
The White House has said Gershkovich is “wrongfully detained.”
In December, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby confirmed that talks were continuing with Moscow to “get Evan and Paul [Whelan, another jailed American] home where they belong.” WASHINGTON POST
Longtime US official, a Russia critic, set to retire
WASHINGTON — Victoria Nuland, the third-ranking official at the State Department and a determined advocate of tough policies toward Vladimir Putin’s Russia, will retire this month after more than 30 years of government service.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced Nuland’s departure from the post of undersecretary for political affairs on Tuesday, issuing a statement that recognized her “fierce passion” for freedom, democracy, and human rights, and America’s promotion of those causes abroad.
Blinken singled out her work on Ukraine, which he called “indispensable to confronting Putin’s full-scale invasion” of the country.
Nuland held numerous State Department positions, including spokesperson, and once served as deputy national security adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney.
But she made her mark as a Russia specialist who long argued for marshaling strong resistance to Putin’s territorial ambitions and foreign political influence.
As the State Department’s top Russia official during the Obama administration, she argued unsuccessfully for arming Ukraine with antitank missiles, and during the Biden administration has been among the biggest proponents of sending Ukraine more and better US weapons.
A skilled bureaucratic operator, she delivered her arguments with sharp wit and a bluntness that drew a mixture of admiration and fear from colleagues. “She always speaks her mind,” Blinken’s statement gently noted.
She became more widely known in 2014 after referring with an expletive to the European Union in a phone call about Ukrainian politics that was recorded and leaked, in what US officials believe was the work of Russia. NEW YORK TIMES
Court deals blow to Fla. workplace diversity law
A federal appeals court on Monday upheld a ruling that blocked Florida from enforcing a law, backed by Governor Ron DeSantis, that would restrict how private companies teach diversity and inclusion in the workplace.
A three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit ruled on Monday that the “Stop Woke Act” “exceeds the bounds” of the United States Constitution’s First Amendment right to freedom of speech and expression in its attempts to regulate workplace trainings on race, color, sex, and national origin.
The appeals court upheld a federal judge’s August 2022 ruling that said the same.
“By limiting its restrictions to a list of ideas designated as offensive, the Act targets speech based on its content. And by barring only speech that endorses any of those ideas, it penalizes certain viewpoints — the greatest First Amendment sin,” Judge Britt C. Grant wrote in Monday’s opinion.
Julia Friedland, a spokeswoman for DeSantis, said in a statement Tuesday that the governor’s office is “reviewing all options on appeal going forward.”
“We disagree with the
Court’s opinion that employers can require employees to be taught — as a condition of employment — that one race is morally superior to another race,” Friedland said.
“The First Amendment protects no such thing, and the State of Florida should have every right to protect Floridians from racially hostile workplaces.”
The “Stop Woke Act” was approved by the Republican-controlled Florida legislature in March 2022.
The act was one of DeSantis’s top priorities, and before he dropped out as a possible candidate for president in 2024, it was a routine talking point on the campaign trail.
Also referred to as the “Individual Freedom Measure,” the “Stop Woke Act” prohibits trainings in workplaces, public schools, colleges and universities that could lead someone to feel guilty or ashamed about the historic actions of their race or sex.
A violation of the act is an offense under state antidiscrimination laws, The Washington Post previously reported.