And Take That "Mansion" With You!
WASHINGTON — Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona announced on Friday that she would leave the Democratic Party and become an independent, unsettling the party divide anew just days after Democrats secured an expanded majority in the Senate.
“I have joined the growing numbers of Arizonans who reject party politics by declaring my independence from the broken partisan system in Washington,” she wrote in an op-ed published in The Arizona Republic.
Ms. Sinema, who was already facing a likely Democratic re-election challenge in 2024 after angering her party by opposing key elements of its agenda, will need to maintain some ties with Democrats to keep her committee seats and other benefits, since they would still hold a majority without her.
She informed Senator Chuck Schumer, the New York Democrat and majority leader, of her plans on Thursday, according to a Senate Democratic aide who described the private conversation on the condition of anonymity. The aide said that Ms. Sinema would keep her committee positions through Democrats, meaning the party would still hold a one-seat edge on the panels next year, giving them new flexibility over nominations and legislation.
Still, her decision will no doubt ruffle Democrats who on Wednesday were exuberant about securing a 51st seat in the Senate with Senator Raphael Warnock’s victory in Georgia. Ms. Sinema’s switch is likely to provide new complications for Mr. Schumer and Democrats going forward, even though she wrote in her op-ed that “becoming an independent won’t change my work in the Senate; my service to Arizona remains the same.”
Ms. Sinema has not said whether she would caucus with the Democrats, as do two other independent senators, Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Angus King of Maine. She told Politico that she would not caucus with Republicans, and that her ideology and voting habits would not change.
Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, noted Ms. Sinema’s strong backing for major Biden administration initiatives such as the infrastructure package and said President Biden hoped to keep her as an ally.
“We understand that her decision to register as an independent in Arizona does not change the new Democratic majority control of the Senate, and we have every reason to expect that we will continue to work successfully with her,” Ms. Jean-Pierre said in a statement.
Party switching is not unheard-of in the Senate when lawmakers see political advantage in making such a move. After losing in a Democratic primary in 2006, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut ran and won as an independent but continued to caucus with majority Democrats. Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania left the Republican Party in 2009, after joining with Democrats in pushing some initiatives of the Obama administration, but was later defeated in a Democratic primary.
Ms. Sinema has cast herself as a bipartisan deal-maker in the Senate and is often seen on the Republican side of the floor, conversing with and lobbying Republicans with whom she has worked on a variety of issues. Like Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, she has been a holdout on some major Democratic priorities such as tax increases. She and Mr. Manchin killed Democratic efforts to weaken the filibuster and push through new voting rights legislation this year. Arizona Democrats symbolically censured her after her filibuster vote.
Mr. Manchin, who was re-elected this week to a spot in the Senate Democratic leadership, has been mentioned more often as a potential party-switcher given his own re-election difficulties in his deep-red state, and Republicans have made clear that they would welcome him.
But Ms. Sinema has also been assiduously courted by Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, who has praised her for refusing to bend on the filibuster. She appeared with him at an event at the McConnell Center in Louisville in September, drawing criticism from Democrats who saw her as cozying up to the top Republican before the election that would decide party control of the Senate.
Ms. Sinema is more in line with Democrats on major social, cultural and environmental policies and was a key architect of the recent Senate agreement that paved the way for passage of legislation to mandate federal recognition of same-sex marriages, which cleared Congress this week over the opposition of most Republicans. She has been a reliable vote for the Biden administration’s judicial and executive branch nominees.
Where she has diverged with Democrats is more on fiscal and tax policy. She has blocked Democratic attempts to increase taxes on corporate America and Wall Street, drawing accusations that she was running interference for her wealthy donors.
Though Ms. Sinema strictly limits the news media’s access to her, she relishes being a center of attention in the Senate and has made Mr. Schumer work for her vote. When Mr. Manchin relented in July and decided to back a sweeping climate change and spending bill, Mr. Schumer still had to secure Ms. Sinema’s vote as a final step and she won hefty concessions, forcing Democrats to drop a $14 billion tax increase on some wealthy hedge fund managers and private equity executives and to change the structure of a 15 percent minimum tax on corporations. She also won drought relief in the bill for her state and others in the West.
Writing in The Arizona Republic, Ms. Sinema said that she had “never fit perfectly in either national party” and that the “loudest, most extreme voices continue to drive each party toward the fringes.”
“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,” she wrote. “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.”