In an op-ed at the Tucson Sentinel, former Arizona Senator Dennis DeConcini and Max Richtman, president and CEO of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, write Sinema should reconsider filibuster stance to protect seniors’ voting rights:
Older Arizonans who voted safely and securely by mail in the 2020 election may find that it isn’t so easy next time, thanks to restrictive laws enacted by the state Legislature last spring.
The majority in the U.S. Congress rightly perceives those laws as a threat to citizens’ sacred voting rights. They are offering federal legislation, the For the People Act, to supersede state laws like Arizona’s and protect the constitutional rights of seniors and other vulnerable groups. But the bill cannot pass the U.S. Senate as long as Republicans can block it using the filibuster.
A narrow change in the filibuster rules would allow this landmark voting rights legislation to move forward on a simple majority vote. Senator Kyrsten Sinema has not yet supported changes to the rule, without which Congress may not be able to protect our voting rights. That’s why nearly 40 organizations, political advocates and influencers in Arizona and Washington, DC have joined us in asking her to reconsider her position – and protect the rights of the people of this state to cast ballots by mail.
More than any other age group, senior citizens benefit from the ease and comfort of vote-by-mail. Mail voting allows older Arizonans who are immobile, sick, or don’t want to risk being infected by the Delta COVID-19 variant to exercise their constitutional rights safely. Some 40% of voters age 50-64 and 55% of those over age 65 voted by mail in the 2020 elections.
Those who want to restrict that right falsely claim that voting by mail is rife with fraud. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Studies have shown mail-in voting to be consistently free of fraud. An M.I.T. study found that only 0.00006% of 250 million mail-in votes nationwide were fraudulent. Additionally, scholars at Stanford University analyzing more than 20 years’ worth of data in California, Utah and Washington found vote-by-mail did not advantage one political party over another.
Nevertheless, Republicans in the Arizona Legislature bought into the “Big Lie” that the 2020 presidential election results were illegitimate. In May, state lawmakers enacted legislation to prohibit sending absentee ballots or ballot applications to voters unless requested. The new law also imposes stricter signature requirements for mail ballots.
Arizona’s law is a solution in search of a problem since county election officials recently reported (in July) fewer than 200 cases of potential voter fraud out of more than 3 million ballots cast statewide in the 2020 election.
Nearly 20 states have enacted laws this year that will make it harder for Americans to vote. The sole purpose of restrictive, new laws is to suppress votes that the majority party in these state legislatures don’t like.
That is undemocratic, un-American, and unacceptable. Voters are supposed to be able to freely choose their elected representatives, and not the other way around.
The federal ‘For the People’ Act would protect all Americans from new state voter suppression laws by setting national mail-in voting standards and guaranteeing no- excuse mail-in voting. It would require states to give every voter the option to vote by mail. These guarantees would assure that seniors – including older Arizonans – could participate in future elections.
Sen. Sinema is always responsive to the needs of Arizona seniors. [is she really?] She has made earnest efforts to achieve bipartisan solutions to policy changes which we commend. We urge her to support modifications to the Senate filibuster rule to allow the Senate to approve the For the People Act on a simple majority vote.
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Excerpts from a good article exposing more of Sinema’s corruption. Bob Lord is quoted on the carried interest loophole.
KYRSTEN SINEMA USED THE WINERY WHERE SHE INTERNED TO FUNDRAISE WITH PRIVATE EQUITY
The Arizona senator, who is blocking tax increases on the rich, spent the summer courting donors who stand to lose under major tax reform.
Daniel Boguslaw
September 26 2021, 10:03 a.m.
THE DEMOCRATIC SENATOR threatening to block the party’s ambitious social policy agenda in order to preserve former President Donald Trump’s tax cuts for corporations and for the wealthy spent last summer interning at a winery owned by the private equity baron Bill Price.
Sinema has told Democratic colleagues, according to the New York Times, that she will oppose any tax increases on either corporate or personal rates, essential pillars of the legislation. Her opposition to tax hikes on the rich comes amid a major spending blitz to encourage her to stand against any tax increases on private equity executives or hedge funds.
In the past two years, Sinema has received tens of thousands of dollars in maxed out donations from private equity partners like Price and investment firm CEOs. Now, many of those same senior firm executives stand to lose millions to the IRS if a bill targeting the carried interest tax loophole is included as part of the Senate’s budget reconciliation process.
“The carried interest loophole rewards one narrow class of workers, fund managers, whose compensation already is in the stratosphere compared to almost everyone else, with a deeply discounted income tax rate. It’s indefensible,” Bob Lord, tax counsel at Americans for Tax Fairness, told The Intercept.
In response to a colleague’s expression of support after an NPR story detailing her family’s struggles with financial hardship, Sinema, then a representative, speaking to colleagues in the Democratic cloakroom just off the House floor, deadpanned: “Yeah, voters love that stupid shit. They eat it up.”
https://theintercept.com/2021/09/26/kyrsten-sinema-private-equity-tax-loophole/
Somehow this seems like the equivalent of slapping her hand but maybe it’s all they’ve got.
Kyrsten Sinema Faces No Confidence Threat From Arizona Dems Over Filibuster
BY KHALEDA RAHMAN ON 9/26/21 AT 6:36 AM EDT
The Arizona Democratic Party has pledged to hold a vote of no confidence against state Sen. Kyrsten Sinema if she votes against filibuster reform, accusing her of continuing to protecting a “Jim Crow relic” under the guise of bipartisanship.
In a statement after a Saturday meeting, the Arizona Democratic Party State Committee said the Democratic Party was at a “critical crossroads” and could lose both the House and Senate in the 2022 midterm elections if legislation is not passed on issues including voting rights, healthcare and immigration.
The committee added that the Arizona Democratic Party will closely monitor Sinema’s votes in the coming weeks.
If she does not vote in favor of filibuster reform, the $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation bill and the American Families Plan, the committee says it will press forward with a no confidence vote.
“If she continues to delay, disrupt, or vote to gut the Reconciliation Package of its necessary funding,” the statement said, “then the Arizona Democratic Party State Committee will go officially on record and will give Senator Sinema a vote of NO CONFIDENCE.”
https://www.newsweek.com/kyrsten-sinema-faces-no-confidence-threat-arizona-dems-over-filibuster-1632771
Just watched .02 seconds & you’re right. It is quite offensive. Reminded me of that scene in A Hard Day’s Night when George is being wooed by corporate culture conservatives to help plug shirts & Suzie.
George: They’re grotty.
Executive: Grotty?
George: Grotesque!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QREeweMWTZk
George, we still miss you!
WB, they are “bipartisan” and “problem solvers” according to them. Sound familiar? And they just love that “quirky” Kyrsten Sinema.
WARNING: This video contains material that may be offensive to some viewers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWjQqnTOXic
No Labels. No decency or intellect either. Isn’t this the same group of tax dodging miscreants founded by that Titan of Liberal Democracy Joe Lieberman? You know, the clown that Sinema is actually emulating instead of the McCain Maverick she thinks she is?
No Labels donors are concerned about paying their taxes…
DARK-MONEY GROUP TO DONORS: RECONCILIATION BILL CAN STILL BE KILLED
Ryan Grim
September 22 2021, 7:00 p.m.
THE DARK-MONEY GROUP No Labels remains optimistic that it has been able to delink the bipartisan infrastructure bill away from the larger reconciliation package that includes the bulk of the Biden agenda, with the possibility of outright killing the bigger bill still in play, according to a note sent by the group’s executive director to its donors.
“It is now clear that the reconciliation package will be delinked in time from the infrastructure bill and will be less than $3.5 trillion (if it passes at all), in theory making support from House Republicans for the infrastructure bill more likely,” the email from Margaret White reads.
The message goes on to applaud Arizona Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema for her relentless fight on their behalf.
https://theintercept.com/2021/09/22/no-labels-reconciliation-infrastructure-sinema/
Sinema is getting some of the attention she desperately craves, at least in social media.
Robert Reich
@RBReich
Kyrsten Sinema has received over $750,000 from Big Pharma. Her office is led by a former lobbyist whose firm worked on behalf of pharmaceutical companies.
And now she’s trying to tank a bill to lower drug prices.
This is the power of big money, folks.
12:06 PM · Sep 23, 2021·Twitter Web App
11.6K Retweets 645 Quote Tweets 32.7K Likes
Robert Bouley, you make some bold claims about mail in voting.
Got any links you can share that support these statements so that we can educate ourselves?
Would you share them with the class?
Or are you just repeating stuff you heard on the cable TV news?
Dems want to send out mail in ballots for everybody.No matter what the individual preference. This does lead to at least some fraudulent voting. Dems want you to believe that it is near impossible to receive a mail in ballot if you are not able to vote in person. Actually there are several ways to request a mail in ballot. Unless you are a total idiot it is really not a problem. Dems in power believe that the average American is incapable of doing much on their own. All part of the plan to make every American more and more dependent on the government. And when has the government really ever been very good at doing anything effectively and efficiently?