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Lisa Desjardins Lisa Desjardins
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“On Wednesdays, we wear pink”, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona says drolly and immediately as I walk into her small “hideaway” office in the basement of the Capitol, dropping the classic ‘Mean Girls’ line.
I am, in fact, wearing bright pink wide-legged trousers. It is Wednesday. And I have missed the connection. But not Sinema.
Whatever you say about her, the 48-year-old is pointedly aware – colleagues from both parties that I spoke with agree she is one of the best in modern memory at gauging the will and ways of her fellow senators.
She is known for her fast mind, bipartisan approach and colorful fashion, a symbol of her independence, defiance of Washington norms and her unapologetic, “this-is-me” attitude.
Her role in high-stakes negotiations brought platoons of Capitol reporters clustered outside her offices. She religiously refused to comment until deals were done.
The resulting list of Sinema’s successes is hefty, and – includes the $1 trillion infrastructure bill and her record as the only recent Senator to get her state’s judicial nominees through the Senate without a delay.
But she also has drawn intense criticism — especially from the left. In 2021, she opposed a national minimum wage increase with a showy thumbs down. In 2022, she single-handedly blocked a tax increase on wealthy investors. That same year, she ended chances for voting rights legislation with a speech passionately defending the Senate filibuster that stood in the way. And of course, Sinema formally left the Democratic Party and became an independent.
Her dogged push for immigration reform resulted in a mixed ending: She forged a rare, carefully-constructed bipartisan compromise, but it died when former President Donald Trump and others decried it.
Now, consider for a moment that Sinema has only been in the U.S. Senate for one term.
One observation from covering her for years: Sinema has many sides and any one headline, interview or chat is unlikely to capture all or even many of them.
As Sinema said in our interview, the media is “highly reductive,” so coverage can tend to paint politicians in black and white terms, good or evil. But part of it is Sinema’s own strategy. Since joining the Senate, she has been more disciplined and careful in what she says in public, on or off the record. Frustratingly so.
With that in mind, I sat down with her, shortly after she gave her farewell address and not long after I interviewed retiring Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-North Carolina, a friend of Sinema’s.
Her hideaway was still fully furnished. Half a dozen staffers took up the chairs around us.
I wanted to understand a few basic things: her secret formula as a Senate savant, and what she truly thinks of the place.
WATCH: GOP Rep. McHenry gauges Capitol Hill dysfunction as he leaves Congress after 20 years
As you’ll read, she bluntly dodged some questions I expected answers to – including how the men of the Senate see women there – but was sharply direct on others, like how she differs from Nancy Pelosi on Capitol Hill.
This interview has been condensed and edited for length and clarity.
Lisa Desjardins, PBS News: What does it say that people like you and [Rep. Patrick McHenry] are leaving Congress?
Sen. Kyrsten Sinema: I think this place is not as interested in getting things done as it used to be.
How did we get here? Why is that?
I mean, there’s a lot of reasons I think … how we got here. But one of the reasons is that there is low tolerance in the community writ-large for people who are willing to compromise and do hard work and settle for part but not all of what you want.
There’s a lot of talk about money in politics. How much of a factor is that or not?
It’s not that.
Reps. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., and Trey Hollingsworth, R-Ind., talk before a House Financial Services Committee hearing in Rayburn Building on June 21, 2018. Photo By Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call
What’s going on?
Look, it’s hard to win a primary if you’re not marching the goose-step thing. And the tolerance for individual thought and diversity of opinion is low.
It kills me to hear that.
Yeah, me too. Since that is what makes our country the best.
You talked a lot in your goodbye remarks about the filibuster. Why did you think that was really important?
I think it’s the most important thing I’ve done in my career because protecting that guardrail is what ensures that we don’t ricochet back and forth with the short term passion, the excess, the desire for untrammeled power. The filibuster is designed to stop those excesses. It’s important.
How do we get to that point where more people [believe] we don’t have to agree on everything and I don’t have to agree with everyone in my party on everything?
I don’t think this is something that you can legislate or regulate. You can’t change rules. This is about the American people. You know, we as Americans should consider supporting people with whom we don’t always agree. Like it’s okay if we only agree, you know, 60 percent of the time, right? We don’t have to demand fealty. You don’t need 100.
But too often, success is defined as, you know, the clicks on the internet and how much you can fundraise off of a video or thing that you do. And people think that that is the victory.
But that doesn’t actually put food on anyone’s table.
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Let me talk about the Senate in general. How is it different than you expected?
The ability of one senator to shape the outcome of legislation is tremendous. Not everyone uses that, you know, strategically or effectively. And I learned how to do it.
[Former Speaker Kevin] McCarthy said to me one time that you’re the best vote counter he’s ever seen. What do you do?
I think people tell me the truth.
Why?
Well, they know I’m not going to tell anyone and they know I’m not going to betray their confidence. They also know that I’m not going to go back on my word. So it’s about respect.
Also, I’m not offended if someone is in a place that is different than where I would like them to be.
So if I ask someone, ‘How are you going to vote on this?’ and they tell me they’re going to vote the opposite of how I want them to vote, it doesn’t bother me. I’m not mad about it. …
And if someone says to me, ‘No, I cannot be convinced,’ I say, ‘Thank you for telling me’. And then I know we’re done. I move on. And I think that that’s respect.
The immigration bill … I know you still hope that parts of that will be passed. … What, in the end, do you think happened there?
We had like 24 votes on the Republican side. And [then-]candidate Trump decided that he would rather deal with this after his election. And senators, all of whom get to make their own decisions, chose to not move forward.
Do you think the election might have been at all different if that bill had, in fact, become law?
No.
Trump would have still been talking about the border?
Sinema Yes. And he still would have won. And the Republicans still would win the Senate. I don’t think it would have changed.
What do you think Democrats stand for now? I will ask about Republicans too.
Well, I’ve left the Democratic Party, so I don’t think that I’m qualified to have that conversation.
I think you’re maybe more qualified to talk about the two parties. What, if anything, do they stand for? I know what they say, but some of it’s all gobbledygook…
I think that’s a question for them, not for me.
All right. Same thing with Republicans?
I can tell you what I stand for.
Okay.
I like to be pragmatic and practical and actually get stuff done. I want to solve real problems for real people. I think I did that. I mean, you know, not everything I wanted.
Mitt Romney said you [got done] more than anyone else …
And that’s why I came to work every day. I just don’t think there’s a reason to come here if you’re not doing that. Right. Like, why? Why? Why would I leave my beautiful state?
So what I stand for is practical, pragmatic solutions to real problems that people face.
And I think the solution is to be free of ideology. Ideology is not particularly useful. Like, it doesn’t move the ball. It doesn’t solve problems. And that’s what I stand for.
Two criticisms of you. One is that you were beholden to donors, especially investment donors, especially Wall Street donors. How do you respond to that?
Well, I think it should be fairly clear that I’m beholden to no one. So, there you go.
The other is the idea that you left the party for political reasons. Why not a Democrat? Why independent?
You know, when I first started in politics, I was not a Democrat. I was independent when I first started. It didn’t work. And so at the time, I joined the party that was most closely aligned with my values. And then there came a day when I did not feel like that alignment worked.
I love watching the Senate floor. You’re almost like a Nancy Pelosi-like figure to me on the Senate floor, in that you really spend time talking to your colleagues, which I think is her secret sauce. She mainly talks to Democrats.
That would be the difference.
(crosstalk)… where I’m going …
I mean, maybe in the House it works to only talk to your own party if you’re in charge. Okay, fine. But in the Senate, that never works. You can’t get there.
And so you should have relationships with people across the political spectrum.
One, it makes you a more well-rounded human where you listen to and understand positions and viewpoints that are different than your own, which if you would like to, you can view with curiosity, with an intent to learn rather than with fear or repulsion. Right? Like, I’m okay with an opinion that is different than my own. I don’t find it threatening. I find it interesting. Right. And actually, you can learn and grow that way, which is what I think as humans were designed to do.
When I talked to McHenry, I asked him about the fact that in the next House of Representatives, of the 17 standing committees, not a single one will be chaired by a woman. On the Senate side, how do you feel women fare? Do the men really take women as seriously as they should?
I think I’m taken seriously.
That’s a little bit of deflection. Overall …?
I can’t speak to other people’s experiences. I think you’d have to ask them.
Do you think Congress is broken?
I mean, I think that elected officials are breaking it.
The institution is just us.
It’s us. It’s how we behave, how we show up to work, how we engage with each other.
What do you think people get wrong about the Senate, especially the press?
I think the press is highly reductive. Yeah, highly reductive. And I get it because it’s the world that we live in.
But asking someone to talk about other people or what’s happening in negotiations all the time – I know it’s incredibly frustrating, when during negotiations I would never say things and everyone else would. But I’m also the – I got the deals done, right?
You’re holding the trust? And had to be the center?
I didn’t have to. I chose to because I wanted the outcome more than I wanted the quote.
And so I think one of the things that the press here does is hanging outside the door asking for a quote after every meeting that’s not designed to help move a deal forward. … And I understand that’s not the press’s role.
But what I will say is that that pressure, which many people find difficult to avoid, it hurts.
I will say that there’s a pack mentality on Capitol Hill.
There is.
That hurts journalists as well.
What do you feel like your impact was on the Senate?
I think my biggest impact was to save the filibuster, which I’m, again, incredibly proud of.
Most important thing I’ve ever done. I hope it lasts.
And I would say the other thing that I would hope would have been my impact on the Senate was. Helping my colleagues see that. It’s okay to be kind to everyone. It’s okay to be friends with everyone. It’s okay to literally work with everyone. You don’t have to agree on everything. You can just. You can be good to each other.
You can be human. Do you think Jan. 6 affected that at all? I feel like in the House it got … (crosstalk)
I mean, it was a little bit rough, but yeah, it was rough before that.
Are you closed to returning to elected office? What are you doing next?
I will not run again.
What’s next?
I can’t really talk about it because of the ethics of the United States Senate. … But I’m gonna do some cool, exciting stuff.
Left: U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) speaks to reporters at the U.S. Capitol on February 05, 2024. Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
By Lisa Desjardins
By Jonathan Coopersmith for The Conversation
Lisa Desjardins Lisa Desjardins
Lisa Desjardins is a correspondent for PBS News Hour, where she covers news from the U.S. Capitol while also traveling across the country to report on how decisions in Washington affect people where they live and work.
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