White House ‘very confident’ Sinema defection won’t end Democrats’ Senate majority
Katherine Doyle
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The White House said the decision by Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) to register as an independent would change little for President Joe Biden’s party in the Senate.
The shake-up complicates what had appeared to be Democrats’ outright majority in the Senate after winning Georgia’s runoff on Tuesday. Sinema has said she does not intend to caucus with Republicans and expects to keep her committee assignments.
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Biden’s press secretary defended Sinema’s move, saying the White House expects the principal dynamics to stay the same.
“We understand her decision,” Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Friday. “The way we see it and understand it, it does not change the new Democratic majority in the Senate.”
Sinema “has voted with the president 93% of the time,” Jean-Pierre said, crediting the Arizona senator as “a key partner” on Biden’s legislative victories.
“We think that partnership will continue. We are very confident,” she added.
Asked whether Sinema gave the White House a heads-up on her decision, Jean-Pierre demurred and said the White House does not discuss private conversations with members of Congress.
Sinema has, at times, rankled party activists by bucking Democratic leaders, and her decision could mean that Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) will maintain influence in Democratic negotiations.
In an op-ed published Friday in the Arizona Republic, Sinema argued that rigid partisanship was leaving people behind.
“When politicians are more focused on denying the opposition party a victory than they are on improving Americans’ lives, the people who lose are everyday Americans,” Sinema wrote.
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“That’s why I have joined the growing numbers of Arizonans who reject party politics by declaring my independence from the broken partisan system in Washington,” she added.
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