When it came time to vote on a $ 15 minimum wage amendment on Friday to the massive coronavirus stimulus bill, US Democratic Senator Kyrsten Sinema opted to do it emphatically in Arizona style – and the action infuriated his left-wing critics.
In video images that have gone viral, Sinema is seen offering a negative vote in the Senate floor. She was one of seven Democrats and an independent leftist who opposed the amendment, which failed 58-42.
The senator explained her vote in a statement posted on Twitter, saying the debate over the minimum wage should be resolved separately from Congress’ response to the pandemic.
$ 15 MINIMUM WAGE LOSES EIGHT DEMOCRATIC VOTES IN THE SENATE
“The Senate must hold an open debate and an amendment process on raising the minimum wage.”
“Senators from both parties have shown support for raising the federal minimum wage and the Senate should hold an open debate and an amendment process on raising the minimum wage, separate from the reconciliation invoice focused on COVID“, she wrote.” I will continue to work with colleagues on both sides to ensure that Americans can access well-paid jobs, quality education and skills training to build economically safer lives for themselves and their families. “
But the Senate plenary gesture by Sinema – a moderate who often opposes Democratic plans that he considers too liberal – seemed intended to return a notorious vote taken in July 2017 by an Arizonan colleague, the late American Republican Senator John McCain , which opposed a GOP plan to repeal and replace ObamaCare.
Unlike McCain, who died of cancer in 2018, Sinema often joined Republicans to express their support for repealing Obama’s legislation. “I am proud to work beyond party lines to end this harmful tax and make health care more accessible to the inhabitants of Arizon,” said Sinema in 2019.
“I am proud to work beyond party lines to end [ObamaCare] and making health care more accessible. “
U.S. Senator Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., Speaks in Washington, July 16, 2019. (Associated Press)
McCain’s vote in 2017 infuriated many of his Republican colleagues, including then President Donald Trump, because many viewed his “thumbs down” gesture in the Senate floor as a deliberate public rebuke to Trump, as well as being a vote to defeat a proposal supported by the Republican Party.
“He was awful, which he did with the repeal and replacement,” said Trump almost two years after McCain’s vote – and almost a year after the senator’s death from cancer at 81 – during an appearance on the Fox Business “Mornings” program with Maria. “
“What he did to the Republican Party, the nation and the patients who could have received excellent health care was not good,” said Trump at the time.
“What he did to the Republican Party and the nation and the patients who could have received excellent health care was not good.”
Former President Trump and the late American Senator John McCain, R-Arizona, did not agree to revoke ObamaCare.
Just as McCain spent much of his career facing Republican colleagues in what came to be known as his “independent” style, 44-year-old Sinema – who entered the Senate in January 2019 after serving in the U.S. House and the Legislative Assembly of the United States. Arizona State – has earned a reputation for irritating its fellow Democrats with its own ways of thinking freely.
Sinema’s willingness to go against the Democratic Party line has put her – as well as her fellow West Virginia Democratic Senator Joe Manchin – in advantageous positions while the Democratic leadership tries to collect votes for its agenda in an almost uniformly divided Senate.
US Joe Manchin, DW.Va., is seen on January 30, 2020 in Washington. (Getty Images)
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Then, when Sinema helped defeat his own party’s minimum wage proposal on Friday, the party liberals who supported the wage increase plan publicized it on social media.
“I’m going to tell my kids it’s Kyrsten Sinema,” wrote a Twitter user, comparing the senator to the character Effie Trinket from “The Hunger Games”.
Tennessee Holler posted that it was “offensive” as Sinema “approaches Mitch McConnell” before voting.
Some critics criticized Sinema’s purse and gestures while she voted for the plan.
“As a white woman, I understand that we, as a group, will never return from Kyrsten Sinema wearing a Lululemon bag and bowing slightly to vote against a $ 15 minimum wage,” wrote a commentator.