Should Kyrsten Sinema be charged with fraud and made to step down from her office?

I’m surprised that other people are surprised. Just look at who she works for. I would say 90% of Democrats have a similar neoliberal donor base. Any one of them are willing to be the 1 person to obstruct this or that when they get the phone call. Their role is to prevent progressive legislation, secondarily they’re there to temper Republican extremism.

Not everything is made publically clear for voters nor do all voters research who they are voting for, but in my book, if you take money from one party, you should stick to that party. She’s more than welcome to run as an independent or what have you for her next term. Then people know what she may or may not stand for. Blindsiding voters who had no choice but to vote for her because she was the only dem on the ticket is wrong.

No. She was and is free to change party affiliation and there is no rule, to my knowledge, about timing such a change regarding an election.

She wasn’t up for re-election this past year. She is positioning herself for 2024 when she’ll probably foul up the Arizona elections.

@janbb Oh, thanks. I thought she just won this year. Still a turncoat in my books and yes, I can see how she will foul up the elections for next time. Actually, looking at her age, she is old enough to run for President.So possibly she’s thinking of running for President as an independent. Also read she was a member of the green party before changing to Democrat. So I assume that people in Nevada knew what they were getting.

@SnipSnip I know she’s free to do so, but I’m saying it shouldn’t be that way. Voters should get what they were promised. Otherwise what is to stop republicans running as democrats in democratic areas to later change their allegiance or democrats running in republican-held areas as republicans and changing to Democrats? I mean, then what is the point of voting if anyone can change their stripes any time? They should at least stay within their party during their time in office. I would get it if she said that she would run as an independent in for the next election but stay as a dem in the meantime.

No. She has to face re-election in 2024. Then the voters can decide what they want.

But what she said is true: The majority of people are actually Moderates (Independents, Centrists).

She’s not planning on running for President. Her political career is dead: Democrats hate her and she’ll never be conservative enough for real Republicans. She’s planning on getting a job making 7 figures to do nothing. That’s how it works. She did her part and now she’s going to get a major reward from the financial sector. Mission accomplished.

She isn’t going to run for President. She is trying to keep her Senate seat.
Sinema is a maverick. She worked for Bernie Sanders before she was a Senator. She was big on LGBT rights. It’s kind of amazing to me how she has betrayed her early supporters.
Arizona likes the McCain independent thinkers.

@filmfann Arizona elected her when she ran as a progressive…

@filmfann If she had stayed on as a Dem, and Dems would have had more weight to assigning her to areas she wanted to help progressives. What she doesn’t consider is that committees have to be split 50 /50 so if both sides stick to their guns then its easy for republicans to keep progressive ideas from even getting to the floor. If dems had the power then they had the right to make a committee more dems than republicans making it easier for progressive ideas to make it to voting. Just because she said she won’t caucus with republicans didn’t mean she didn’t do them a solid and hang progressives.
What she is worried about is that neither dems or independent were crazy about her and definetly Rep don’t like her either and her numbers are dropping. At the very least she will hav e a 3 way ticket next time and it will split the dem and indepent votes and a republican will win. She shot the party she ran with and is shooting herself in the face.

Parties are pretty whack anyway. I thought the point of a representative democracy was that we voted for human beings to represent us.

I object to the premise that an elected representative’s legitimacy comes from anything other than the people electing them.

I think it’s an opportunistic move by an ambitious politician, and historically, every move that moves away from partisanship, just weakens one party and strengthens the other. But could it be good for America? Let’s wait and see,

No law says that they can’t change nor are they bound to vote straight line.
Be informed about your politician’s. Her Donations

I think that any politician that is elected, is not primarily elected as a politician, but as a proponent for the platform that voters elected them on, so that they may work to enact them on the voters’ behalf.
As such, the mandate from the electorate that the politician has, is inextricably linked to that platform and the attached policies and philosophies. If the politician changes his party, unless otherwise convincingly stated, the politician abandons that platform, and their mandate is automatically extinguished.
They should of course be allowed to change parties, but that should automatically come with a resignation from office.

Of course she should be allowed to change parties, the way any citizen is, but while in office, I think it’s wrong and if I voted for her, I’d be pissed and feel like I was deceived. If I was part of an organization that endorsed her and put boots on the ground to help her get elected (which, in the case of organizations endorsing candidates, the intended outcome is that the politician will then help the organization, for example a labor union endorsing a labor-friendly candidate), I’d feel like she took money from the organization that she did not deserve.

I agree with @ragingloli that any politician who changes parties while in office should resign.

As for being charged with fraud, from a legal standpoint what she did may not qualify for being charged with fraud. We may think of it as deceptive, and maybe her taking the money from the party she is leaving is wrong, but I don’t know if it qualifies as fraud.

I heard a politician commentator say that the advantage for Sinema is that she will not be primaried, since she will be Independent.

This is ludicrous you guys. You are basically saying that a private organization paid to help her get elected, so in proper quid pro quo lawmaking, she owes her allegiance to them. Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. Members of congress represent the interests of the people in their district/state. Parties are nothing more than gangs.

She risks losing the support of the party, but you guys are trying to say that she owes it to the money to not deviate from the will of party leadership. What the hell is a federated system for? She represents the people who elected her, period, Her job is to uphold the constitution (which doesn’t mention parties, strangely) and represent the people of Arizona, not a special interest group. If they don’t like how she does it, they can vote her out or recall her.

any politician who changes parties while in office should resign.

Keeping in mind that I vote for the person, not the party, I disagree.
I would want them to resign immediately if they ran on a major policy view (for example: pro choice), and then changed their stance after the election.

The premise of the question is that Democrats are required to all vote the same and it seems unfair that one of them stepped away from that mentality. Charged with fraud? No. Politicians can and do change parties or affiliations all the time.

@seawulf575 Not at all. That is not what I am saying. I just find it curious that she suddenly changed the moment Dems had control of the Senate. She is famous for not getting along with dems on many topics and being a thorn on the side. She could’ve still done that but by her changing when the new senate is set then Dems won’t have the majority which doesn’t change voting that much she said she won’t jump on the Republican party line, but had she stayed then Dems could assign more dems to committees. I just find her change on the week that we win a GA seat fishy. I still believe that any politician that changes should step down from their post.

@Smashley I give to the democrat party to support democrats. If she doesn’t want to be one then she should’ve been forthcoming and ran in another party and pick their pockets. I think the person should remain in their party till they are about to leave office and want to run in another party. I also agree that politicians shouldn’t be loyal only to the voters of their states but let’s be real I’m pointing out she should be loyal to the little voters like myself who give money to Dems to support their ideas. I’m not talking about big corporations’ money. I could care less if politicians ignore them. Hell, I wish it was illegal for Corporations or millionaires or billionaires to buy them. Its not the same thing. I’m totally fine her doing what is best for her state, but I don’t think that is what she is doing. I think she is doing what is best for her.

@Pandora – you giving money to a political machine is not some constitutionally protected act. You give the party money for the party to use to increase its own power. There is no other bargain, whatever you imagine your money is for. If you believe otherwise, you are simply misinformed. The party leadership chooses how to spend it, for its own purposes. Yes, this has typically meant a system of loyalty and horse trading and members toeing the party line, but there is no law, nor should we want there to be.

I’m sure you were relieved when Trumps evil attempt to repeal the ACA was stymied in the Senate by members of his own party. Are you arguing that John McCain should have been booted for disloyalty, or maybe he should have been purged years earlier for going his own way on occasion. What is more important? How a member of Congress votes, or what party they claim allegiance to? Actually, if he hadn’t died, he probably wouldn’t have been re-elected, but that’s the prerogative of the people of Arizona.

The members of the Democratic Party of Arizona elected Sinema to the candidacy, then the federal party provided her with resources to help her win. Not every candidate gets much from the party; it is a function of available resources, likelihood to win, and the advantage the party thinks it will get from that particular candidate once elected. At the very least, the party prevented a Republican from taking the open Arizona seat for 6 years, and Sinema for the rest of her term is still sure to vote much more like an average democrat than a republican. The party still won on its Sinema bet.

There is never an expectation that all elected members of a party vote straight party all the time. This isn’t Canada or Israel where you just need your party to make a deal with another party and you can rule without challenge. US politics is messy by design. Yes, the average member of Congress is too egotistical and fearful to try and rock the boat, but we need disruption to keep us thinking. If the party leadership could just craft and pass law without challenge, how would that be any different that a corporate dictatorship?

No fraud. She can do what she likes. It’s actually a reasonable (if cynical) political move on her part. She likely would have lost to a Democratic challenger because partly of the reasons the @gorillapaws said, and the left wing of the party has been energized. She’s still voting with the Democrats and has kept her committee assignments so functionally nothing will change. But since she can run as an independant in her next election she may able to effectively split the vote enough to get reelected. So she gets to have her cake and eat it too.

I’m not as down on her as my progressive friends are but it certainly was a dick move and I can see why many people are pissed.