Kyrsten Sinema Touts Friendship With McConnell as Popularity Dips
U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, a bisexual Democrat who’s proved a disappointment to many members of her party, is now touting her friendship with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell — a Republican who’s helped block much progressive legislation.Sinema gave a speech Monday at the University of Louisville’s McConnell Center, which is named for the minority leader, who is the senior senator from Kentucky.“In today’s partisan Washington, it might shock some that a Democratic senator would consider the Republican leader of the Senate her friend.
But back home in Arizona, we don’t view life through a partisan lens,” Sinema said, according to Insider.McConnell praised Sinema effusively in introducing her. “I’ve only known Kyrsten for four years, but she is, in my view — and I’ve told her this — the most effective first-term senator I’ve seen in my time in the Senate,” he said. “She is, today, what we have too few of in the Democratic Party: a genuine moderate and a dealmaker.”Sinema and Sen.
Joe Manchin of West Virginia, a fellow Democrat, have been key opponents of ending the filibuster — a process in the Senate in which it takes 60 votes to end debate on a bill and move to a vote on the bill itself.
That’s been a barrier to voting rights legislation, the Equality Act, and more. The Senate has a 50-50 split between Republicans and Democrats (including the two independents who caucus with them) with Vice President Kamala Harris having the power to break a tie, so if only a simple majority were required, many bills supported by Democrats would get through.
