BREAKING: Sinema Opposes Filibuster Reform In Blow To Biden's Efforts To Pass Voting Rights During a speech on the Senate Floor Thursday, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) doubled down on her .long-standing support. for ...
(Image by YouTube, Channel: The Hill) Details DMCA
Earlier yesterday, Kyrsten Sinema took to the Senate floor to double down on her opposition to the filibuster, defying President Biden and her fellow Democrats and likely dooming urgently-needed voting rights legislation.
We're going to go through her speech and tell you exactly why her justifications just don't stand up to scrutiny. But this much is clear Sinema is betraying her constituents and her party right now and needs to be held accountable immediately.
What Sinema said: She stated that "I strongly support and will continue to vote for" the voting rights legislation on the Senate floor right now while noting in the same breath that "there's no need for me to restate my support for the 60-vote threshold."
Fact Check: Sinema knows that passing the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Bill is impossible without reforming the filibuster. Without filibuster reform, she is effectively ceding power to Republicans at the state level who are passing voter suppression laws, hyper-partisan gerrymanders, and even seizing control of nonpartisan election administration function.
What Sinema said: "Eliminating the 60-vote threshold will simply guarantee that we lose a critical tool that we need to safeguard our democracy."
Fact Check: The filibuster was never intended to protect democracy. The Founding Fathers never wanted a supermajority to be required for regular Senate business, and predicted that it would cause gridlock. And prior to the 1960s, not only was the filibuster used rarely, the only bills defeated by a supermajority threshold were civil rights bills.
During the height of the voting rights movement in the 1960s, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. noted that the filibuster was a "tragedy" used by "misguided senators" to block "people from even voting." Those words are as true today as they were then and Sinema should know better.
What Sinema said: "I have listened to Arizonans expressing diverse views" on various policy areas and "I find myself grateful time and time again to learn from Arizonans who share the same core values, but differ in position on issues and policy."
Fact Check: If Sinema was listening to her constituents, she would support filibuster reform. According to a new poll, a majority of Arizona voters 66% support election reform and are in favor of reforming the Senate filibuster to pass such a bill. Arizonans are clear on this issue and Sinema is defying them.
Whether you can chip in $5 or $50 or $500, we are profoundly grateful for your support. It's up to us to seize this opportunity to hold Kyrsten Sinema accountable.
The Primary Sinema Project team
