Kyrsten Sinema says she makes decisions by listening to business leaders, when asked about PRO Act

[Sestak]

You even say "in contrast, Joe Manchin..." even though Joe Manchin also voted against the $15 amendment.

There is a large perception that has been created over the past few months (fueled by 'Manchin cycle' memes etc.) that Manchin is going eventually kowtow to Biden's policies after making lots of noise against it. With Sinema, that isn't really there at the moment. In addition, Sinema's line on the filibuster is much harsher than Manchin (Manchin is open to further reforms, Sinema is not and actually wants to bring back the filibuster for judges), making her quite clearly the largest threat in Congress to Biden's agenda.

And yes, while you don't particularly care about the more progressive policy planks Biden ran on, he did run on them and they were a big part of selling his campaign as "the most progressive in history". So people getting upset at a single member for derailing that is understandable; it's no different than the intense dislike here for Joe Lieberman having killed the public option. Admittedly there is some speculation going on here with Sinema, but again - her filibuster position is the single biggest obstacle to much of Biden's agenda.

Also I love how the left, who spent tons of energy attacking Ossoff and Warnock right up until the moment they got elected (as one does when one is a fifth column), immediately decided they deserved full credit for that victory and that the only reason we won Georgia was because of [whatever pet issue is pertinent in the current conversation].

Who the hell are you talking about here? I don't remember even a single poster here saying this about Ossoff/Warnock during the runoff campaign; in fact, most of the lefty posters here were quite enthusiastic about them (especially Warnock) potentially becoming senators. This conflation of posters here with idiots on Twitter is by far the most obnoxious thing you consistently do - given your position within the Democratic party, probably 30-40% of the country holds views to the left of yours, and you consistently try to present some of the dumbest morons on the planet as representative of all of their views.

[Sestak]

But listening to you and your friends, one would think that Sinema singlehandedly killed this amendment.  You're all just pretending to be too stupid to understand how the process works so you can fool other people who legitimately don't understand how the process works.

Manchin and Sinema, together, did kill this amendment on their own. None of the other Dem Senators who voted against announced any position before those two; they were waiting for them to decide. If Manchin and Sinema had stated openness there is literally no doubt in the mind of anyone paying attention that the remaining votes could not be (easily) mopped up by whipping votes. And yes, it is entirely within the power of a 50+1 majority of the Senate, if they actually supported the policy, to change the threshold from 60 to 50+1. Once Manchin and Sinema opposed it, the rest saw it as a free vote where they could signal.

Also, with the PRO Act (the subject of this thread), Sinema is for all intents and purposes the only one holding it up - Manchin announced he was going to cosponsor the bill earlier this week. In fact, many were hoping that this bill would be the one that would open Manchin to reforming the filibuster somewhat, since it appeals to him much more than other legislation on social issues, election law, or healthcare and holds absolutely zero chance of passing in any form on the 60 vote threshold. But now if Sinema might not even support it at all, both this bill and lots of other parts of Biden's agenda might be close to completely dead.

[Sestak]

The minimum wage needed 60 votes to pass.  The authoritarian fantasy where the VP overrides the parliamentarian to force through illegal legislation was never going to happen.

"Illegal legislation" lmao. Illegal under what law?

The 50-60 vote threshold is entirely the creation of the Senate and the Senate can do with it whatever it wants, whenever it wants. Both times the nuclear option was invoked involved this exact same process - the Senate voted to overrule the ruling of the parliamentarian, setting a new precedent for their rules. The Senate could have done the same here to alter the Byrd rule -their ability to do so is constitutionally enshrined. The parliamentarian is not an office with any constitutional or legal power. In fact (as I mentioned during the debate), the Senate did reverse parliamentarian decisions on reconciliation eligibility back in 2001 and no one cared. But somehow now it's a big deal of "illegal legislation" etc. because it's the Democrats trying to do it.

Also, as I have repeatedly stated before, I blame Manchin just as much as Sinema for the minimum wage vote. But ofc people on the Democratic side have been bemoaning Manchin's position for years on end, so not exactly that surprising that they focus on the newer arrival for a little bit.

Also, as I've noted, the primary problem with Sinema is on stuff like this union bill, where she's clearly to the right of Manchin and the primary obstacle to it passing. And quite frankly (unlike Manchin) Sinema pretty clearly seems to be perfectly fine with killing 90% of the Democratic agenda just so she can be remembered 30 years later for "saving the filibuster" or whatever, without any thought as to the consequences of the legislation she's killing.


Obviously, if Sinema was lying when she made this comment about the PRO Act and actually plans on supporting the legislation, then it's all fine. But right now we have no indication that that's the case. And if she wasn't lying to them, that leaves us with, as you mention, two options:

1. The merits: Sinema opposes unions.
2. The petty option: Sinema doesn't actually oppose unions but will still vote against them because Bernie people are pro-union.

Is it that hard to understand why someone who takes either of these lines is very frustrating to have as a vote the Democrats have to rely on?

[Sestak]

Rules are rules.  You don't like 'em?  That's fine, change the rules.  There's a mechanism in place to do that.

The mechanism for changing the rules is overruling the parliamentarian; while there is an official textualized Senate Rules, the actual operation of the Senate is governed by a long set of precedents set by the senate itself. Some of the most prominent changes to the Senate rules (such as nuclear option for judges) were actually handled this way - no changes were ever made to the text; the Senate just overruled the parliamentarian in order to set a new precedent which has since stood as the rule.

[Sestak]

It was not written with intent of passing.  Sanders came up with the idea just to divide the Dems because he knew it wasn't going to pass.

Sanders didn't even write this, though? This was part of the text that was in the House bill (and in fact passed the House with all but two Dem votes). The parliamentarian forced it out of the Senate bill, then a vote was held to send it back in. The notion that Bernie Sanders is this secret saboteur deliberately trying to sabotage the Democratic party (while pretty much consistently holding to and supporting the party's line as budget chair), while Senators who actively work against the party and its majority should be considered loyal members, is ridiculous.

There's an opportunity at the start of every Senate session to set the rules for the upcoming session.  That is how previous changes have been made.  If you don't like the rules, you can change the rules.  You can't just arbitrarily decide to throw out the rules you don't like mid-game.

As I have said before this is blatantly false. The operation of the Senate works on a very precedent-based system - even the Senate website page on the rules makes a clear note on the role of precedents set by real-time Senate votes.

The parliamentarian acts as an advisor to help work through this set of rules and precedents; since Senators who preside over the chamber are politicians and have not memorized the details of all of these Senate precedents and rules, the parliamentarian advises them on what to do/say on any given point based on the established rules and precedents of the Senate. None of this precludes the Senate from setting new precedents to change the procedures if it so wishes.