XPost: alt.politics.usa.congress, alt.politics.democrats, alt.fan.rush-limbaugh   
   XPost: talk.politics.guns, sac.politics   
   From: yourdime@outlook.com   
      
   Sen. Kyrsten Sinema on Tuesday ripped Vice President Kamala Harris’   
   support for scrapping the legislative filibuster to enact federal abortion   
   rights, drawing praise from Kari Lake, the Republican seeking to succeed   
   her in the Senate.   
      
   A series of comments pulled together the cast of a three-way Senate race   
   that never really happened but might have if Sinema, a Democrat-turned-   
   independent, had not dropped out earlier this year.   
      
   Rep. Ruben Gallego, the Democrat running for Sinema’s seat, referenced   
   abortion rights, a favorite wedge issue he raises with Lake, but didn’t   
   address the filibuster that found new interest.   
      
   The exchanges highlighted Sinema’s critical views of her former party as   
   she winds down her political career.   
      
   In an interview with Wisconsin Public Radio, Harris said the Senate should   
   set aside the rule that effectively requires 60 members to allow a vote   
   that would reinstate protections erased by the Supreme Court in 2022. It   
   essentially reaffirmed a position the Biden administration has held since   
   the high court overturned Roe v. Wade.   
      
   “I’ve been very clear, I think we should eliminate the filibuster for Roe,   
   and get us to the point where 51 votes would be what we need to actually   
   put back in law the protections for reproductive freedom and for the   
   ability of every person and every woman to make decisions about their own   
   body and not have their government tell them what to do,” Harris said.   
      
   Her comment drew a pointed rebuke from Sinema, I-Ariz., who has kept a   
   relatively low profile since quitting the Senate race in March.   
      
   “To state the supremely obvious, eliminating the filibuster to codify Roe   
   v. Wade also enables a future Congress to ban all abortion nationwide,”   
   Sinema wrote on the social-media platform X. “What an absolutely terrible,   
   shortsighted idea.”   
      
   Lake responded with a post of her own that flattered the woman she   
   insulted for months on the campaign trail, and sought to claim the support   
   of those who sided with Sinema on the filibuster issue.   
      
   Sinema “is right here,” Lake wrote.   
      
   “The filibuster is the minority party’s way of stopping the majority from   
   shoving radical ideas like Defund the Police, the Green New Deal, and   
   packing the Supreme Court down America’s throats,” she continued.   
      
   “Radical Ruben Gallego would blow up the filibuster and eliminate the   
   small amount of bipartisanship that still in Washington today. As your   
   next Senator, I will defend it.”   
      
   Gallego, who also has supported setting aside the filibuster for abortion   
   protections, didn’t offer any immediate reaction but mentioned Lake’s   
   opposition to abortion rights in a social media post of his own.   
      
   “When Kari Lake isn’t calling for an abortion ban, she’s pushing   
   conspiracy theories and denying elections,” he wrote. “Now she wants to be   
   your voice. She doesn’t get us, and she sure shouldn’t represent us.”   
      
   Sinema quit the Democratic Party in December 2022 as she faced dismal   
   support from her party, in part over her support for preserving the   
   legislative filibuster.   
      
   Many Democrats saw Sinema as thwarting President Joe Biden’s legislative   
   agenda by holding to a rule that Democrats could not overcome in a   
   narrowly divided Senate.   
      
   To her critics, that was most evident in January 2022, when Senate   
   Democrats sought to override laws passed in Republican-controlled states   
   to make voting harder by passing federal voting rights legislation.   
      
   Biden personally met with Sinema and fellow holdout U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin   
   of West Virginia in a bid to push a Democratic-led bill to the House of   
   Representatives. Both remained opposed to changing the filibuster rule to   
   allow a bill on voting rights to proceed.   
      
   At the time, Sinema said she backed the Democrats’ bill. Even so, she   
   would not set aside the filibuster rule to do so, and the measure   
   predictably died from a Republican blockade.   
      
   Sinema’s seatmate, Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., faced reelection months later   
   and had avoided the filibuster issue throughout his 2020 run, but publicly   
   said at the time he was willing to set it aside to pass voting-rights   
   legislation.   
      
   If the filibuster was an issue some Democrats wanted to avoid, supporting   
   abortion rights has been politically popular for them.   
      
   Gallego repeatedly has raised that issue throughout his campaign against   
   Lake. He has said he wants to enact legislation that would restore rights   
   as they existed before the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe.   
      
   By contrast, Lake stumbled on abortion rights after the Arizona Supreme   
   Court upheld an 1864 territorial law that was a near-total ban on abortion   
   procedures that Lake energetically supported during her 2022 gubernatorial   
   run.   
      
   In a video released by her Senate campaign, she acknowledged that the   
   19th-century law “is not where the people are.” That drew pushback from   
   conservatives who took Lake at her word that she was completely opposed to   
   abortion.   
      
   Now, Harris’ words and Sinema’s reaction bring a light back to the   
   filibuster.   
      
   For Sinema, it was at least the second time in recent weeks that she   
   publicly criticized her former party.   
      
   Earlier this month, Sinema attended the All-In Summit in Los Angeles, a   
   gathering that drew some of the world’s most prominent venture   
   capitalists, such as Peter Thiel and Elon Musk.   
      
   During that event, Sinema joked that she was “overqualified” to run for   
   president and when asked “why are the Democrats so anti-capitalist,” she   
   said, “I don’t understand, because that’s where the money comes from.”   
      
   She declared herself to be “fairly Libertarian.”   
      
   Sinema has largely avoided the spotlight since her decision not to seek   
   reelection. In February, she made what may have been her final push for   
   bipartisan legislation with the border security bill that Gallego and   
   other Democrats — including Biden and Harris — said they supported.   
      
   That measure failed under a Republican filibuster supported by former   
   President Donald Trump, who wanted to avoid handing Biden an election-year   
   triumph. Lake also trashed the bill.   
      
   An uncharacteristically emotional Sinema denounced partisan politics as   
   the bill met its demise.   
      
   “But less than 24 hours after we released the bill, my Republican   
   colleagues changed their minds,” she said then. “Turns out they want all   
   talk and no action. It turns out border security is not actually a risk to   
   our national security. It’s just a talking point for the election.”   
      
   In January, when Sinema remained a possible election rival, Lake lumped   
   her in with Biden and Gallego as the problem in Washington.   
      
   “When Republicans take back the U.S. Senate, we will fix the problems   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
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