by Ben Whedon
Democratic Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema backed the restoration of the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster threshold for all judicial and executive nominees.
Speaking at the University of Louisville’s McConnell Center on Monday, Sinema advocated for the reinstatement of the threshold which then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid removed for non-Supreme Court nominees in 2013. Mitch McConnell, while Senate majority leader himself, removed it for Supreme Court nominees in 2017.
“Not only am I committed to the 60-vote threshold, I have an incredibly unpopular view. I actually think we should restore the 60-vote threshold for the areas in which it has been eliminated already. We should restore it,” Sinema said, according to The Hill.
“Not everyone likes that… because it would make it harder for us to confirm judges and it would make it harder for us to confirm executive appointments in each administration, but I believe that if we did restore it, we would see more of that middle ground in all parts of our governance, which is what, I believe, our forefathers intended,” she continued.
Sinema has long stood in the way of her party’s efforts to further restrict or entirely abolish the Senate filibuster to ram through partisan legislation, much to the chagrin of more partisan lawmakers within her own party.
President Donald Trump successfully appointed three judges to the Supreme Court, all of whom received fewer than 60-votes. Moreover, each of them went on to vote for the overturn of the landmark abortion precedent set in Roe v. Wade. Though a pro-choice lawmaker, the Arizona Democrat has even resisted efforts from within her own party to create an abortion specific carveout to pass protections for the procedure.
Sinema faces reelection in 2024.
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Ben Whedon is the night editor for the Just the News. He came to the company from Breitbart News and is a graduate of Washington and Lee University.
Photo “Krysten Sinema” by Krysten Sinema.
