Sinema Switches To Independent Status, Saying She Won’t Be ‘Blindly Loyal’ To A Partisan Agenda
December 9, 2023—As the final race for the U.S. Senate came to a close this week in Georgia, Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema made a surprise announcement: She’s leaving the Democratic party to be an independent leader.
Her decision won’t affect the control of the Senate. Democrats will continue to led the upper chamber next year. Furthermore, Sinema said she doesn’t plan to caucus with Republicans. That means her announcement won’t change the distribution of money for Senate staff or committee seat makeup.
However, it demonstrates a blow to the power of partisan politics. As such, it gives strength to independent thinking and action in Washington.
Sinema said she did not run for office to be “blindly loyal vote for a partisan agenda.” She announced her decision today in an op-ed and a video message. In them, she spoke up for the merits of independent thinking over the all-to-common way of submitting to extreme partisan pressures.
“This Senate seat doesn’t belong to Democratic or Republican bosses in Washington. It doesn’t belong to one party or the other, and it doesn’t belong to me,” Sinema wrote. “It belongs to Arizona, which is far too special a place to be defined by extreme partisans and ideologues.”
US Congress in 2023-24
Georgia voters decided the last remaining question in the 2022 midterm elections, giving Democrats a win in the run-off election. President Biden’s party will continue running the chamber next year with its 50 of the 100 seats in hand. Note, caucusing with Senate Democrats are two other independents: Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Angus King of Maine. Sinema said she will continue working with Democrats and is likely to maintain her committee assignments.
In the House, Republicans gained control of the chamber with a 221-213 majority. It’s a narrow lead that will give incoming House Speaker Kevin McCarthy tenuous control of the chamber, committee assignments, and the agenda.
The Pressure of Party Politics
Sinema’s decision sheds light on the power of the two-party system in the United States and the weight of pressure party members face.
Since President Joe Biden took office in 2021, Sinema’s name has become synonymous with one who bucks the party. At times, news media commentators and activists joined the party machine, pressing the senator to support the president’s agenda. At one point, a CNN contributor called her “a problem.” The force of that browbeating visually peaked in October of 2021 when immigration activists followed Sinema into the women’s bathroom, demanding support for Democratic legislation.
Sinema’s decision shows that politicians can take another way, and forge their own path if they have to. She said the current party system supports extremists and leaves independent-minded voters without representation.
“Everyday Americans are increasingly left behind by national parties’ rigid partisanship, which has hardened in recent years,” Sinema wrote. “Pressures in both parties pull leaders to the edges, allowing the loudest, most extreme voices to determine their respective parties’ priorities and expecting the rest of us to fall in line. In catering to the fringes, neither party has demonstrated much tolerance for diversity of thought. Bipartisan compromise is seen as a rarely acceptable last resort, rather than the best way to achieve lasting progress. Payback against the opposition party has replaced thoughtful legislating.”
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