Ex-Democrat and former Independent Arizona Senator, Kyrsten Sinema, must’ve found it amusing to witness her ex-Democratic peers scrambling to abolish the filibuster. A wave of far-leftists within the Congress, carrying a label of the Democratic Party, stood naked in their hypocritical stance on the filibuster in the wake of a bulk of Senate Democrats moving to employ the same in an attempt to torpedo the government funding bill, which fortunately managed to sail past the Senate confines.
Sinema, during her senatorial tenure, emerged as a stalwart guard of the filibuster. She couldn’t care less about being ostracized by her Democratic peers, and even a formal censure imposed by the Arizona Democratic Party couldn’t deter her from her stance. The filibuster necessitates the Senate to amass 60 votes for the progression of most legislative propositions.
Oh, the irony! ‘Ex-presidents’ Joe Biden and Barack Obama, not too long ago, ridiculed this Senate procedural rule as a ‘relic of segregation.’ Sinema, alongside ‘ex-Democrat turned Independent’ West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, led the charge with Senate Republicans to fend off a desperate attempt led by a beleaguered Chuck Schumer, the then Senate Majority Leader, to scrap the filibuster during a botched vote.
In an amusing turn of events, House Democrats ended up beseeching their Senate colleagues to resort to filibuster to halt the spending bill from reaching the desk of then-incumbent President Donald Trump. They seemed to have conveniently forgotten their relentless campaigns for scuttling the same Senate procedure when they boasted control of all governmental pillars, projecting visions of propagating partisan legislations through a simple majority vote.
Sinema couldn’t shy away from seizing the opportunity to expose this flagrant hypocrisy, penning a response to a post which mocked the use of filibuster to obstruct partisan legislations. Her candour was evident when she questioned, ‘Isn’t it peculiar that you’re now advocating for the very Senate tool you insisted be scrapped to stop Trump? You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to identify the stark hypocrisy here.’
Notwithstanding the scorn, Sinema, the fiery Democrat outlier, championed the cause of filibustering the GOP’s spending bill. She even went on to castigate an additional nine Senate Democrats guilty of voting in support of the legislation aimed at preventing a partial government deadlock.
Sinema did not stop at one confrontation. She was quick to retaliate against naysayers contesting the Senate Democrats’ purported inaction in wielding the filibuster to ‘nullify damaging GOP’ measures. Counter to their baseless assertions, Sinema reminded that Senate Democrats had indeed enforced filibuster judiciously to stifle the inception of bills on restricting transgender athletes’ participation in women’s sports, sanctioning officials of International Criminal Court, and safeguarding infants’ right to life in wake of botched abortions.
The seemingly paradoxical conduct of Senate Democrats hasn’t eluded Senate Republicans, who were quick to highlight the amusing contradiction of their peers filibustering GOP legislations when they had advocated for a complete dismantling of the same procedural rule under Biden’s presidency and Schumer’s Senate dominion.
John Thune, the Senate Majority Leader, added a touch of sarcasm to the unfolding drama. He quipped, ‘So, as a Democrat, there’s no semblance of hypocrisy in plotting to jettison the filibuster while in the majority position in the Senate. But, it’s absolutely fine to wield it frequently while in a minority position, huh?’
Evidently, thirty-eight Senate Democrats saw no qualms in employing the filibuster as a tool to force a governmental shutdown instead of voting in favour of the GOP-spending bill. These 38 were no strangers to the filibuster, having either voted for its termination or campaigned vehemently for its end at some point.
Sinema’s blistering critique of the filibuster did not go unnoticed; on the contrary, it attracted commendations from the Senate Republicans. It provides a clear reminder of the shifting sands and inconsistencies of the Democrats’ position compared to the unwavering stance of Republicans on the filibuster, making it questionable why one would ever count on the former to uphold principles over political convenience.