In the News: Kyrsten Sinema

Show Notes

Nia and Aughie explore the recent decision by Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona to change her party affiliation from Democrat to Independent.

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N. Rodgers: Hey Aughie.

J. Aughenbaugh: Good morning Nia. How are you?

N. Rodgers: I'm good. How are you?

J. Aughenbaugh: I'm very good. Thank you very much.

N. Rodgers: I have a question for you.

J. Aughenbaugh: You have a question.

N. Rodgers: I have a question for you. This is like a short, short, short. Because I don't expect us to be very long. But I'm curious. Who cares if Kyrsten Sinema is a Democrat or an independent like Big Book The Thrill. Is that going to just jack up the Senate now that it'll be, I guess 50, 49, and one?

J. Aughenbaugh: Listeners, what Nia is asking me about is this day that we are recording, it was announced that Arizona Senator Krysten Sinema said that she was going to leave the Democratic Party and she was going to become an independent. Your first question here was, how is this going to affect the workings of the Senate as an institution? Before she announced the results of the Georgia runoff election had already become official. Incumbent Senator Warnock beat back in the runoff the Republican challenger Herschel Walker. Nia, that would have left the control of the United States Senate in the hands of the Democratic Party.

N. Rodgers: 51, 49.

J. Aughenbaugh: 51, 49, because there are 49 Democrats in the Senate.

N. Rodgers: No, it's 49.

J. Aughenbaugh: Hold up. Let me finish. 49 Democrats, registered Democrats in the Senate, plus two independents who caucus with the Democratic Party.

N. Rodgers: Got you. That's Barnie Sanders.

J. Aughenbaugh: And Angus King.

N. Rodgers: Angus King.

J. Aughenbaugh: Sinema by going independent, will still leave the Senate in the hands of the Democratic Party or caucus. Because even if she caucuses with the Republican Party, which by the way, as of the time we are recording, she has not said which party she will caucus with, or if she will. It's been decades since we've had a ''true independent''. Because most senators don't like to be a true independent because they might have to give up their seats on committees.

N. Rodgers: It is all about committees responsibilities.

J. Aughenbaugh: Senate and the House allocate committee seats.

N. Rodgers: Seniority counts, it matters.

J. Aughenbaugh: Seniority counts. If you caucus with the majority party, they get more committee seats, which increases the likelihood that you will have a choice as a senator, of which committees you're going to sit on, whether or not you have any leadership role on those committees.

N. Rodgers: Remember folks, that the entire reason that you want to sit on a committee is so that you can bring stuff back to your district. So that you can say to your district when you run for re-election, ''See, I did these fabulous things for us. Don't you love me? Don't you want to send me back for another six years?''

J. Aughenbaugh: That's the Senate question.

N. Rodgers: [inaudible 00:04:06] about that too.

J. Aughenbaugh: Democrats are still going to have control because even if Senator Sinema caucuses with the Republicans, it will be 50, 50 and the Vice President is a Democrat, Kamala Harris, who cast the tie-breaking vote. Next question Nia.

N. Rodgers: My next question is, so what happens if Joe Manchin does the same thing? Then he could conceivably give power to the Republicans if he decided to go independent and caucus with the Republicans then they would be 51 and the Democrats would be 49.

J. Aughenbaugh: That's right.

N. Rodgers: Even with the President, they will be 50. I mean the Vice President.

J. Aughenbaugh: If Manchin did that, let's be very clear, Krysten Sinema represents a state Arizona that increasingly has turned the color purple. It used to be a Republican Party stronghold, but over the last four, six, eight years, it has become more Democratic. The other senator from the state of Arizona is Mark Kelly. He's a Democrat. The state just elected a Democratic governor.

N. Rodgers: It's slowly shifting, even though the GOP there does not want it to. We'll see what happens.

J. Aughenbaugh: But if Joe Manchin, who was a Democratic senator from West Virginia, decided that he's going to go independent. Let's face it, Manchin, if he runs for re-election and I think he's up for re-election in two years, 2024, he's going to have a really difficult time getting re-elected because the state of West Virginia has become overwhelmingly Republican. Trump won that state, I think, with like 69 percent of the vote, in 2020. If he did, that would really shake the Senate up. Really shake it up.

N. Rodgers: They do a lot of things together. I'm not just making stuff up that he might do that.

J. Aughenbaugh: Nia, if I'm Joe Manchin, and I really want to go ahead and demonstrate my worth to my constituents in West Virginia, I don't become an independent, but I leveraged the fact that I could with whom?

N. Rodgers: With the Democratic Party to try to bring them around.

J. Aughenbaugh: That's right. What I would be doing if I'm Joe Manchin is I give Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer the weekend to process. If you will, Krysten Sinema going independent and then I get on his agenda on Monday morning and I sit down with Chuck and I say, ''Okay Chuck, let's play ball.''

N. Rodgers: You can give me to not do this.

J. Aughenbaugh: If you want me to stay in the Democratic Party caucus, you need the promise me the following. We'll get on the agenda of the Senate.

N. Rodgers: Then I'm not going to see an energy bill that's going to make it hard for me in West Virginia because West Virginia is all about energy. I'm not going to see an energy bill that's going to make it hard for me there. I'm not going to see some hot raise in taxes that's going to hard for me there. Interesting.

J. Aughenbaugh: Interestingly enough for Krysten Sinema, she may only be delaying the inevitable. Because she had so upset the Democratic Party in the state of Arizona that they were already openly discussing who was going to run against her in the Democratic Party primary in that state. She's up for re-election also in 2024. She may only be delaying the inevitable. Because the Democratic Party in Arizona was so upset with her that she was so willing to push back against Democratic President Joe Biden in all of his policy initiatives the last two years.

N. Rodgers: She may be trying to appeal to the independent voters in the state to try to hold on or the moderate Republicans in the state to hold on.

J. Aughenbaugh: [inaudible 00:09:18] at least, her friend Lisa Murkowski has done in Alaska. The Republican Party of the state of Alaska doesn't like Lisa Murkowski because she's not a ''faithful Republican''. On the other hand, she's not a Democrat. Lisa Murkowski is positioned herself in the middle and it wouldn't shock me if that was what Krysten Sinema was thinking, which was, I'm going to get primaried in my own state in 2024. Let's try to go ahead and get out in front of that. Let's see if I can go ahead and create conditions to where I could possibly win re-election in 2024 without being a member of either political party in the state of Arizona. Does that make sense?

N. Rodgers: It does.

J. Aughenbaugh: This was a bombshell. This was just an out of the blue bombshell. By the way, it increases Krysten Sinema's leverage with both political parties in the Senate.

N. Rodgers: Why? Because they're going to have to court her.

J. Aughenbaugh: Particularly if the Democrats are concerned that they might not be able to keep Joe Manchin in the fold on a particular vote or issue, again, you're Krysten Sinema, you all of a sudden now have leverage and you have suitors. You could go to Chuck Schumer on one, meet with Chuck in the morning, and then Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell in the afternoon.

N. Rodgers: What are you going to give me?

J. Aughenbaugh: Listeners, if that sounds all sleazy, I'm sorry. But that's how policy gets made. That's the sausage making process.

N. Rodgers: There we go. There's Krysten Sinema who may be up to all interesting things. Thank you for answering Aughenbaugh.

J. Aughenbaugh: You're welcome. Good questions.