Former Mormon Kyrsten Sinema’s road from green energy Democrat to rebel independent
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It is customary for members of Congress to travel aboard Air Force One when the president visits their state.
But when President Joe Biden made the trip to Phoenix Arizona on Tuesday, he was not accompanied by Kyrsten Sinema, the state’s enigmatic senator.
Not so the deputy Rubén Gallego. He made sure everyone knew he was on board by tweeting a photo of the plane’s boardroom, a useful profile boost for a man pondering a top challenge to Sinema for the Democratic Party’s nomination.
On Friday the reason for Sinema’s absence became clear, she was leaving the party, ending the prospect of what would have been a well-backed primary challenger.
In doing so, he did what critics say he does best: He made a grand gesture of breaking with his party on a matter of principle, while doing what was best for his own political future.
And in a week when victory in Georgia meant Biden could celebrate holding 51 Senate seats, she had made history on herself. Again.
The first openly bisexual member of Congress, an Ironman triathlon competitor, who grew up in a Mormon family and whose idiosyncratic clothing and hair earned her an article in the New York Times style pages, has a habit of defying expectations.
Maybe until now.
Ironman triathlete, openly bisexual member of Congress, who turned from green politics to centrist Democrat to become a thorn in Joe Biden’s legislative agenda, Kyrsten Sinema has long defied easy categorization. On Friday he entered the next phase of his political life and announced that he would be leaving the Democratic Party to sit as an independent.
Fashion writers said she rocked her maverick status outside, complete with a collection of colorful wigs, including this lavender item she paired with a green dress for a May 2020 congressional vote.
“She’s extremely predictable if you look at it from her point of view, but few people in DC think the way she does,” said political strategist Brad Bannon, who saw an astute calculation from a senator who knew the additional Democratic vote from the Georgia result It meant that he had lost. some of the leverage of it.
“This move is an attempt to stay relevant in the Senate and position herself for her re-election campaign against a strong Democratic candidate who could have beaten her in the primary.”
Her story of middle class, gas station living, law school and Congress has become well known since she was elected to the Senate in 2018.
He was born in 1976 into a middle-class family in Tucson.
His father practiced law while mother Marilyn took care of the three children.
But the family’s fortunes turned and his father lost his job in the 1980s recession. His parents divorced in 1983.
Her mother remarried and took Sinema and the other two children to Florida, where the family squatted in an abandoned gas station from ages eight to 11, according to AZCentral.
Sinema has spoken about her mother being dependent on food stamps when her parents divorced and her family became homeless.
Her parents and stepparents were Mormon, and she grew up in the faith.
Vice President Mike Pence administers the Senate oath of office to Kyrsten Sinema during a mock swearing-in ceremony in the old Senate chamber on Capitol Hill in Washington.
Sinema pictured in October 2021 when she was locked in negotiations with the White House over Biden’s $3 trillion spending plans to strengthen the social safety net and rebuild crumbling infrastructure
In October, Sinema presided over the Senate in a jean jacket that caused Twitter to (inevitably) explode, with posters wondering if she had mistaken Congress for the rodeo.
Things began to look up for her family in 1987 when her mother and stepfather got jobs and bought a house with the help of a church.
Sinema won a scholarship to Brigham Young University, sponsored by the Church of Latter-day Saints.
“I have great respect for the LDS church: their commitment to family and mutual care is exemplary,” Sinema said years later. “I just don’t believe in the tenets of faith that they believe in.”
She left the church after finishing college and quickly embraced political activism, running first as a Green Party independent candidate for the Arizona House of Representatives and finishing last.
She found success with the Democratic Party in 2004, beginning a rise that led to her being sworn in as a US Senator in 2019.
A slew of profiles followed, several focusing on statements she made with clothing and her penchant for colorful wigs.
Sinema’s clothing often carried a message. She chose rainbow sneakers for a press conference after the Senate introduced a bill to protect same-sex marriage last month.
The New York Times noted that he wore his maverick reputation abroad.
Tammy Haddad, co-founder of White House Correspondents Weekend Insider, said: “If the other members of Congress had paid attention to her clothes, they would have known she wasn’t going to toe the party line.”
Her Senate wardrobe includes lavender wigs, animal prints, and thigh-high boots.
Kyrsten Sinema presides over the Senate in a jean vest
When he presided over the chamber last year, he was wearing a pink sweater with the ‘Dangerous Creature’ logo on it, prompting Senator Mitt Romney to tell him he was ‘breaking the Internet’… much to his delight.
Members of the Biden administration could be forgiven for thinking she was trying to break them, too.
For a time she was seen as an example of bipartisan progress, working with Republicans to get things done. She was another Senator John McCain-esque maverick from Arizona.
But he ultimately formed an uneasy squad with Sen. Joe Manchin to roll back legislation that would invest trillions of dollars in public services and raise taxes.
She and Manchin ended Democratic efforts to loosen filibuster in an effort to force election reform this year, winning her censure from her state party. And triggering talk about a main challenge.
While Manchin exposed his red lines and questions, Sinema cut out a much more enigmatic figure.
Sinema with Biden and other senators after a bipartisan group met at the White House to discuss an infrastructure deal
His position even provided fodder for Saturday Night Live.
‘What do I want from this bill?’ asked Cecily Strong, playing Sinema. ‘I’ll never tell.’
For her part, Sinema said she did not understand the criticism.
“It always amazes me when people say, ‘Oh, she’s an enigma,'” he told the Washington Post last year.
‘I’m, like, not at all, actually. I’m very direct about what I believe in and why I’m doing what I’m doing.’
Others express it differently. “I think it’s ac***,” Alyssa Mastromonaco, a former White House deputy chief of staff under the Obama administration, told “Pod Save America” hosts earlier this year.
Robert Shapiro, a professor of political science at Columbia University, said Sinema was always more likely to jump ship than Manchin, 75, whose political identity was more closely tied to being a blue-collar Democrat.
“Sinema is not that kind of democrat, and that may have to do with him being part of a younger generation,” he said.
“Given this, and given that Arizona voters may find independents attractive, this is not all that surprising.”