How Bad Is Arizona Blue Dog Kyrsten Sinema? Better Than A Republican? Maybe

I was never “friends” with her, but before Kyrsten Sinema was elected to Congress we served on a board together. I didn’t know her well because I avoided her. I avoided her because she struck me as insane-- actually dangerously insane. It was a big board with a big table. I always tried to sit as far away from her as possible… in case she started acting out and killing people. When she decided to run for Congress, she called me up and asked for an endorsement from Blue America. Early in the vetting process, I realized she wasn’t only insane but also very reactionary for a Democrat. She seemed very angry when I told her we couldn’t endorse her. But, in Congress, she proved I was correct. She quickly ran up the most right-wing voting record in Congress, started soliciting money from all the worst sources and rose in the ranks of the Blue Dog caucus until she became chairman, her current position. It was no surprise to anyone who knows what a worthless scumbag Schumer is to see him recruit her for the now-empty Arizona Senate seat (Flake’s). Expect the wave to sweep her into the Senate.

A couple of weeks ago one of the local newspapers, the Phoenix New Times wrote that she “often sounds and votes more like a Republican” than a Democrat. Their reporter attended a speech she gave at the Tempe Chamber of Commerce, where she unashamedly and repeatedly catered “to one of conservatives' favorite subjects: the need to cut back on government red tape.” That means cutting back on consumer protections, which has been a speciality of hers since getting into the House Financial Services Committee. For the past few years, Sinema has taken more in bribes from the banksters and their lobbyists the committee is supposed to exercise oversight of than any Democrat on the committee. While voting with the Republicans for their agenda, she took $1,013,540 in the 2015 and 2016 and so far this cycle, $1,144,251. That is not just more than any Democrat in the entire House, it’s surpassed by just two members, Speaker Paul Ryan ($2,554,409) and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy ($1,438,800). The only Democrats even in her ballpark are notoriously corrupt bankster boot-licks Josh Gottheimer (Blue Dog-NJ- $868,574) and Pelosi heir-apart and Wall Street fave Joe Crowley (NY- $726,037). One of her colleagues, on condition of anonymity said, plainly, “She’s as dirty as they come. I hope she loses… When people say there’s no difference between the parties, they’re talking about her.”

As corporate types in grey suit jackets snacked on yogurt parfaits, Sinema touted her cosponsorship of the Comprehensive Regulatory Review Act, a GOP-backed proposal that would require federal agencies to re-evalulate financial regulations that are currently in place, and consider making them less burdensome. First International Bank in Scottsdale had been one of her inspirations, she said.

"The bank's president here in Arizona, Greg Miskovsky, told me that many regulations are well-intentioned," she said. "But they stifle our ability to make loans to small businesses seeking to expand and hire new workers."

She also highlighted the fact that she'd introduced the Fostering Innovation Act of 2017, which would exempt some publicly traded start-ups from the auditing requirements in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. (Though the bill was introduced a little over a year ago, it hasn't yet gone up for a vote.)

…Her positions also demonstrate how dramatically Sinema's politics have changed. In 2002, the first year that she ran for the state legislature, she wrote, "Until the average American realizes that capitalism damages her livelihood while augmenting the livelihoods of the wealthy, the Almighty Dollar will continue to rule. It certainly is not ruling in our favor."

These days, her message to capitalists is a lot different.

"I'll be traveling across the state this month listening to business leaders and the challenges and opportunities that they're facing," she told the group at the Tempe Chamber event. "And I want to hear directly from you about how we can bring more jobs to our state."

During a short question-and-answer session, one bearded audience member with a distinct Bernie Bro vibe asked Sinema where she stood on the proposed rollback of banking reforms.

"There's a bill that's currently making its way through Congress that made news in the past couple of weeks on Dodd-Frank rollback, where they're attempting to reduce some of the more burdensome regulations, but at the same time they're granting more power to credit bureaus like Equifax that have not historically been good custodians of information," he said. "I would like to know where you stand on the Dodd-Frank rollback, and that particular bill?"

"I'm not sure exactly what bill you're referring to, but what I can tell you about is the work we're doing on Equifax," Sinema replied, using a time-honored political tradition: the pivot.

Eventually, she indirectly answered the question by suggesting that, yes, she'd support some changes to Dodd-Frank.

"What I can say is that we're working in a bipartisan way in both the House and the Senate to pass reasonable changes to some elements of Dodd-Frank that have been overburdensome," she said. "For instance, regulating insurance the same way that you regulate banks doesn't make sense. They have totally different systems in terms of how they operate, and their risk levels are totally different. Similarly, regulating a community bank in the way that you regulate the Big Four makes no sense."

Closing out, Sinema seemed to suggest to the Republicans in the room that it would be okay for them to vote for her-- after all, she was named one of the most independent members of Congress.

"Frankly, Arizonans don’t care whether there’s an R or a D next to your name, as long as you get the job done,"  she said.

She’s the perfect conservative hack for EMILY’s List and they couldn’t wait to endorse her.

A PPP survey from last month shows her beating Martha McSally 46-41%, although McSally isn’t guaranteed the nomination with Trump allies Joe Apaio and Kelli Ward both running. As of the December 31 FEC filing deadline, Sinema’s bribe-taking was paying off big time. She had $5,149,035 cash on hand, compared to McSally’s $1,816,668 and Ward’s $350,002. Arpaio hadn’t started raising yet.