Sinema Gets Another Big Haul from GOP Donors
Sinema Gets Another Big Haul from GOP Donors
The latest fourth-quarter FEC filings reveal that Democratic Senator Kyrsten Sinema has amassed $1.6 million in 2024 campaign contributions, primarily from larger, Conservative donors.
According to recent FEC filings, Senator Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) brought in $1.6 million in contributions for the fourth quarter. Of that total, only $33,983 was unitemized, which designates donations of less than $200 that are considered "Small Individual Contributions,” and likely come from ordinary citizens. The bulk of Sinema’s recent donations has been from larger backers, including one who has been backing fellow Democratic obstructionist Joe Manchin (D-WV) and bragging about his control over the senator.
A lot of Sinema’s larger donations come from some serious Republican donor names that include:
Harlan Crow, a Conservative donor the Texas Tribune called a “J.R. Ewing-level rich Republican.”
Ken Langone, the billionaire who co-founded the Home Depot and had previously been vocal in his support for conservative causes but switched to supporting Biden after feeling “betrayed” by Trump.
Nelson Peltz, founder and CEO of Trian Partners, who says he calls Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) every week to cheer on his efforts to stall Democratic legislation.
Miguel B. “Mike” Fernandez, a Florida man who made billions in health care and also threw his support behind Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016 after Jeb Bush left the Republican Primary race.
Sinema also took money from additional Republican heavy-hitters like financier George Roberts; the American Petroleum Institute, and the Fox News Corp. whose PAC gave her $5,000. It’s worth noting that Senator Manchin has also received money from Fox News. In distributing his generous political donations, Harlan Crow gave Sinema so much money that he had to be refunded by the campaign so that no laws were broken.
Sinema, who previously accepted donations from Big Pharma groups, went on to become the industry’s leading proponent in the fight against prescription drug pricing reform. In September, SHERO newsletter reported that Senator Sinema took at least $923,065 from dark money industry groups and individual corporations, who are financially backing her in the charge against Biden’s Build Back Better agenda. Sinema has also been praised for her “heroic efforts” in attempting to kill the earlier reconciliation bill that would have helped Democrats to pass critical legislation.
In addition to assisting with special interests, it seems that these recent donations by Conservative backers also ensured a victory a few weeks ago by stopping the Democratic plan to reform voting rights. Both Sinema and Manchin were the sole hold-out votes in their party when the two opposed changing the rules of the Senate, which would have made an exception to the 60-vote threshold many Democratic bills needed to advance.
Had Sinema and Manchin voted with their party to amend the rules, the change would have enabled lawmakers to bring back a talking filibuster specifically for a voting rights bill. At that point, Republican Senators would have been required to hold the floor and make speeches in order to maintain their opposition to the bill.
The proposed rules change also would have allowed senators to pass the voting rights bill with a simple majority of 51 votes, once debate on the measure had ended, while keeping the filibuster rules in play for all other legislation.
Last week Voto Latino, a national political organization focused on Latino voters, announced its new campaign called Adiós Sinema to primary Kyrsten Sinema in the 2024 election. The organization said it would be investing six figures to hold Democratic Senator Kyrsten Sinema accountable during the Arizona 2024 primary.
Senator Sinema’s apparent lack of loyalty to her Democratic constituents has not gone unnoticed by those who previously supported her, so it is likely that she saw these controversial donations from Republicans as the possible solution. Here’s a better solution: Kyrsten Sinema should just be honest and change her political affiliation to Republican in 2024.
Amee Vanderpool writes the SHERO Newsletter and hosts the live SHERO podcast on Callin. She is an attorney, published author, contributor to newspapers and magazines, and analyst for BBC radio. She can be reached at avanderpool@gmail.com or follow her on Twitter @girlsreallyrule.
Paid subscriptions and one-time tributes embedded in each article allow me to keep publishing critical and informative work that is sometimes made available to the public — thank you. If you like this piece and want to support independent journalism further, you can forward this article to others, get a paid subscription or gift subscription, or donate once, as much as you like today.
I don't get her; I really don't. That said, I suspect that she'll change her party affiliation to Republican before 2024, most likely before or after the upcoming midterm election. I suspect that Joe Manchin won't be far behind her, too.
#$inema