Sen­a­tor Kyrsten Sine­ma, the Demo­c­rat-turned-Inde­pen­dent from Ari­zona, has man­aged to be in the mid­dle of Sen­ate deal­mak­ing on infra­struc­ture and gun safe­ty, while serv­ing as a stub­born obsta­cle to pro­gres­sive reform on oth­er fronts.

She has declared her­self pro-choice and cospon­sored the John Lewis Vot­ing Rights Act, yet stands stead­fast for the fil­i­buster used by Repub­li­cans to block Con­gress from tak­ing action on on vot­ing rights and repro­duc­tive rights.

She has won praise from the Repub­li­can side of the aisle, while one angry pro­gres­sive pro­test­er has gone so far as to fol­low the sen­a­tor into a bathroom.

Sine­ma is being called out by Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Ruben Gal­lego, D‑Arizona, a pop­u­lar pro­gres­sive from the Phoenix area who has announced that he is run­ning for Sinema’s seat in what promis­es to be a mar­quee Sen­ate race next year.

“Sup­port­ing leg­is­la­tion you know won’t pass as long as the fil­i­buster is in place isn’t just use­less: It’s insult­ing,” Gal­lego said in a state­ment last week.

An even­ly divid­ed Sen­ate has bestowed unusu­al influ­ence on Sen­a­tors Sine­ma and Joe Manchin, D‑West Vir­ginia, both self-described centrists.

Manchin basks in the lime­light and appears on net­works’ Sun­day talk shows, while Sine­ma dodges inter­views and oper­ates backstage.

Last Sep­tem­ber, how­ev­er, Democ­rats watched in dis­may as Sine­ma jour­neyed to the McConnell Cen­ter at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Louisville, and was intro­duced by its name­sake, Sen­ate Minor­i­ty Leader Mitch McConnell. The Repub­li­can stal­wart intro­duced and show­ered praise on his first term colleague.

“I’ve only known Kyrsten for four years… but she is, in my view, the most effec­tive first-term sen­a­tor I’ve seen,” said McConnell, in the Sen­ate for thir­ty-eight years. “She is, today, what we have too few of in the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty, a gen­uine mod­er­ate and dealmaker.”

A not­ed naysay­er, McConnell praised Sinema’s role in the Senate’s accom­plish­ments under ten­u­ous Demo­c­ra­t­ic control.

She was, said Mitch, “right in the mid­dle of, if not the prin­ci­pal leader of the $1.2 tril­lion infra­struc­ture pack­age and first gun reform plan in 28 years.”

Why the praise? McConnell was obvi­ous­ly try­ing to get the “gen­tle­la­dy from Ari­zona” to switch par­ties, and once again make him the Sen­ate Major­i­ty Leader. While she has con­tin­ued to cau­cus with the Democ­rats, she has been a Repub­li­can ally on the two vital issues men­tioned above.

A key Repub­li­can goal, dat­ing back to the Rea­gan years, has been to sup­press vot­ing by Demo­c­ra­t­ic-lean­ing con­stituen­cies, from African Amer­i­cans to young peo­ple to the work­ing poor. They’ve deployed bar­ri­ers rang­ing from bans on bal­lot drop box­es to pro­hibit­ing stu­dent iden­ti­fi­ca­tion cards for vot­er ID purposes.

They’ve also ger­ry­man­dered House dis­tricts and leg­isla­tive bound­aries with­in states that they have leg­isla­tive majori­ties in, to the detri­ment of urban voters.

The Repub­li­cans, thanks to McConnell’s con­nivance, packed the Supreme Court. He blocked the con­fir­ma­tion of Pres­i­dent Oba­ma’s nom­i­nee to suc­ceed deceased U.S. Supreme Court Jus­tice Antonin “Nino” Scalia, and pushed through Sen­ate con­fir­ma­tion of Jus­tice Amy Comey Bar­rett less than a month before Joe Biden was elect­ed Pres­i­dent. Bar­rett and Neil Gor­such were part of the major­i­ty that hand­ed down Dobbs, which over­turned the land­mark Roe v. Wade decision.

Sine­ma took the stage after McConnell’s glow­ing introduction.

She made no apolo­gies for stands that blocked the John Lewis Vot­ing Rights Act and choice from Sen­ate floor action. In fact, she dissed pro­gres­sive Demo­c­ra­t­ic col­leagues with these words: “Those of you who are par­ents in the room know the best thing you can do for your child is not give them every­thing they want. And that’s impor­tant to the U.S. Sen­ate as well.”

The Ari­zona sen­a­tor made the case for a “slow and delib­er­a­tive” Sen­ate which resists “par­ti­san pres­sure” and keeps the major­i­ty from going “too far.”

In prac­ti­cal terms, that means a six­ty-vote major­i­ty is need­ed to get non-bud­get leg­is­la­tion through the “world’s great­est delib­er­a­tive body.”

Watch C‑SPAN and you’ll see votes on judi­cial and cab­i­net nom­i­nees sub­ject to votes that lim­it debate. The votes are dull com­pared to days when the Senate’s “Sol­id South” had to hold the floor against civ­il rights. Sen­a­tor Strom Thur­mond, R‑Louisiana, holds the record, speak­ing for twen­ty-four hours and eigh­teen min­utes. Sen­a­tor Bar­ry Gold­wa­ter, R‑Arizona, once asked Thur­mond to yield the floor on a pro­ce­dur­al point, so Strom could rush to the bath­room and relieve himself.

In 1934, Louisiana Sen­a­tor Huey Long spiced up debate with a fif­teen-hour stemwinder, with the King­fish giv­ing out recipes for Cajun cooking.

Recent­ly, how­ev­er, the longest speech has been a dull thir­teen hour stemwinder by Sen­a­tor Rand Paul, R‑Kentucky, McConnell’s seatmate.

Sine­ma did work, in tan­dem with Sen­a­tor Tam­my Bald­win, D‑Wisconsin, in round­ing up Sen­ate votes to enshrine fed­er­al recog­ni­tion of same-sex mar­riage. Supreme Court Jus­tice Clarence Thomas has sug­gest­ed that the Roe v. Wade rever­sal should open the door to “revis­it” the court’s 2015 deci­sion (in Oberge­fell) mak­ing mar­riage equal­i­ty legal across the country.

Not so on repro­duc­tive rights. Said Gal­lego in a state­ment: “If you’re not will­ing to do the only thing that will actu­al­ly pro­tect abor­tion rights at a time when they are under attack, how can you call your­self pro-choice? You’re either pro-choice or pro-fil­i­buster… you can’t be both. Not anymore.”

The 2024 Ari­zona Sen­ate race looks like anoth­er don­ny­brook. Sine­ma has not declared if she is run­ning for reelec­tion, but raised $2.1 mil­lion in the first quar­ter of 2023. She has tapped Repub­li­can sources. A total of $280,000 came from employ­ees of the Black­stone Group, the invest­ment colos­sus, with $196,000 from the Car­lyle Group, which enriched for­mer Pres­i­dent George H.W. Bush.

She had near­ly $10 mil­lion in the bank at the start of the year. Gal­lego report­ed rais­ing $3.7 mil­lion in the just-com­plet­ed quar­ter, with $2.7 mil­lion cash on hand.

Just one Repub­li­can has declared, Pinal Coun­ty Sher­iff Mark Lamb, an out­spo­ken Trump sup­port­er. The Ari­zona GOP has under­gone con­vul­sions, field­ing a 2022 tick­et of elec­tion deniers, all of whom lost. Defeat­ed guber­na­to­r­i­al can­di­date Kari Lake has refused to acknowl­edge defeat, and is a pos­si­ble Sen­ate nominee.

Sine­ma has been lots of things in her polit­i­cal life: She start­ed as a Green Par­ty activist in 2000, fol­lowed by ser­vice as a Demo­c­rat in the Ari­zona Leg­is­la­ture and House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives. She switched her vot­er reg­is­tra­tion to inde­pen­dent last Decem­ber. She has, how­ev­er, kept her com­mit­tee assign­ments and con­tin­ued to cau­cus with the Democ­rats, as mentioned.

She declared her inde­pen­dence in her McConnell Cen­ter speech: “If you don’t fit in in today’s Wash­ing­ton, trust me. They want to kick you out. I’ve nev­er real­ly want­ed to fit in. Not in Wash­ing­ton and not any­where else.”