A spokeswoman for Senator Kyrsten Sinema suggested that the legislator’s gender was the reason she was criticized for the thumbs-down gesture she used in rejecting her party’s willingness to raise the minimum wage.
The Arizona senator raised eyebrows and sparked comments on social media about the way she voted with Republicans and seven of her fellow Democrats by voting against an amendment to the American Rescue Plan that would have raised the federal minimum wage to $ 15 an hour.
“Did Sinema really vote against a $ 15 minimum wage for 24 million people like this?” tweeted Sawyer Hackett, advisor to former Housing Secretary Julian Castro,
Michigan Representative Rashida Tlaib, a Democrat who has strongly lobbied for the pay rise, tweeted, “No one should be so happy to vote against lifting people out of poverty.”
Sari Beth Rosenberg shared a clip of Sinema making the gesture with the message: “Show me that you don’t care about Americans without saying that you don’t care about Americans.”
Mario Tama / Getty Images
When asked about the comment on the gesture, Sinema spokesman Hannay Hurley said, according to the Huffington Post: “Comments about a senator’s body language, clothing or physical behavior do not belong to a serious media outlet. . “
However, this has sparked more criticism on social media, including Mona Eltahawy, who writes the Feminist Giant newsletter. “Sinema’s office answered a question about the gesture (thumbs down) by making the absurd claim that the investigation is sexist,” she said.
“Feminism is not: supporting a woman simply because she is a woman”, she wrote to her 361,000 followers, adding, “sexism is not: any criticism of a woman.”
Newsweek contacted the Sinema office for comment.
Hand signals are a common way for senators to vote, especially as lawmakers often wear masks because of the COVID pandemic. Senator Mark Kelly, another Democratic senator from Arizona, gave the thumbs-up when he supported the amendment.
However, given the severity of the provision that his party says is crucial to lifting millions of Americans out of poverty, many have interpreted it as excessively irreverent.
It was also compared to a similar gesture made by the late Arizona senator, John McCain, who gave a thumbs down in 2017 to a Republican Party move to overturn the Affordable Care Act, considered a rebuke to former President Donald Trump.
After Sinema registered the vote, Congresswoman Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) Reshared a tweet she wrote in 2014 when, as a congressman, she actually asked for a raise to the minimum wage. “Anyone who earns a full-time minimum wage earns less than $ 16,000 a year. That’s an obvious choice. Tell Congress to #RaiseTheWage!” Sinema wrote at the time.
More than 800,000 people in the Grand Canyon state They are estimated to be affected by the increase in the minimum wage, where the rate is currently $ 12.15 an hour. That is almost $ 5 more than the federal minimum wage, which is $ 7.25 since 2009.
The amendment to include the increase in the federal wage rate was proposed by Senator Bernie Sanders, but was considered a long shot after the Senate congressman decided it could not be included as part of the budgetary reconciliation that would require only a simple Senate majority. .
Sinema explained his vote on Friday in a statement in which he said the minimum wage increase should be separated from the COVID-19 reduction project.
“No person who works full time should live in poverty,” Sinema said, “Senators from both parties have shown support for raising the federal minimum wage and the Senate should hold an open debate and amendment process on raising the minimum wage, separate from the reconciliation project focused on COVID.”
The graph below provided by Statista shows the minimum wage rates in the USA
