Arizona Democrats are pushing Sinema to support the party’s agenda

As mentioned earlier, Senator Kyrsten Sinema is increasingly at odds with her fellow democrats in Arizona and on capitol hill. Sinema is holding up President Biden’s spending plan, which in turn is holding up an infrastructure package that progressive democrats want tied to the budget plan.

It’s all prompted the State Democratic Party to threaten a no-confidence vote against Sinema if she doesn’t support the party’s agenda. We talked about all this with Jason Barraza, director of the political consulting firm, Veridus.

“We are in an interesting time and we’re seeing some things in Arizona that we haven’t actually seen for a while here. What’s interesting I think from a republican state, I think what is still viewed by many as a republican state is we’ve got a lot of in-fighting within the democratic party,” Barraza said.

He continued that this isn’t, “a topic that we hear a whole lot about in Arizona but certainly it is taking a national stage.”

Barraza mentioned that a big thing he is seeing is that the infrastructure bill is being tied to the reconciliation bill. The infrastructure bill has bi-partisan support but it has become a timing issue because it’s been tied to the reconciliation bill, which, “Kyrsten has said…that she has a problem with the price tag on it, what specifically that problem is, we don’t know yet.”

He said that having this influence is very good for Arizona. He continued that it puts Arizona on the stage.

“People want to know what Arizona thinks about. And Kyrsten is our voice there, she is making sure that she is a center voice, a moderate voice, because she recognizes that she doesn’t just represent democrats from Arizona, she represents both republicans and democrats in our nation’s capital,” Barraza said.