ABOVE: Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, photo via Facebook.
In a little-noticed development, more than 100 LGBTQ community leaders and allied supporters in Arizona sent a joint letter in January to the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ civil rights group, demanding that it withdraw its political and financial support for U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) unless and until Sinema ends her support for the Senate filibuster.
The letter points out that by continuing to refuse to join efforts by Senate Democratic leaders to end the filibuster, which requires 60 votes to pass legislation, Sinema is helping Republicans block progressive legislation already approved by the U.S. House of Representatives, including the Equality Act, the LGBTQ nondiscrimination bill stalled in the Senate.
The LGBTQ leaders, who drafted the letter in partnership with the Arizona Coalition to End the Filibuster, told HRC they will call on HRC’s supporters to stop funding the group unless it backs away from its support for Sinema.
“The toll of Sinema’s obstruction – which HRC continues to tacitly support and thus enable – for your constituents is growing each day,” the letter states, adding, “with the filibuster blocking popular legislation, backed by all or nearly all Democrats, to address the urgent issues of reproductive justice, immigrant rights, gun violence, police reform, workers’ right to organizing, raising the minimum wage, and more.”
In a statement released shortly after sending their Jan. 19 letter to HRC, the Arizona LGBTQ leaders said HRC’s Interim President Joni Madison sent them a letter on Jan. 24 saying that HRC had privately “made it clear” to Sinema’s staff that HRC disagrees with her pro-filibuster positions, especially her vote against temporarily suspending the filibuster to enable the Senate to pass two voting rights bills.
But the statement says Madison’s letter “did not commit to any public statement toward Sinema, to a strong public position in favor of ending the filibuster, or to withdraw support from Sinema if she maintains her obstructionist stance that blocks passage of the Equality Act, critical voting rights legislation, and so much more.”
HRC, along with many other LGBTQ organizations, has supported Sinema since the time of her election in 2018, when she became the nation’s first openly bisexual U.S. senator. At the time of her election, Sinema expressed strong support for the Democratic Party’s progressive agenda. She also signed on as a co-sponsor of the Equality Act and has since said she would vote for the LGBTQ rights measure.
But since 2020, she has stated she supports the filibuster because she, like other supporters of the controversial Senate rule, claim it fosters bipartisanship by requiring both parties to compromise as a means of passing controversial legislation.
Nearly all political observers in Washington believe the Equality Act, which passed in the House last year, is dead in the Senate without the lifting of the filibuster.
A spokesperson for Sinema’s office in Washington did not respond to a request from the Washington Blade for comment and a possible interview with the Arizona senator to obtain her thoughts on the growing opposition to her continued support of the Senate filibuster.
In response to a request from the Blade for comment on the Arizona LGBTQ leaders’ criticism of HRC’s actions toward Sinema, an HRC spokesperson referred the Blade to an updated statement on Sinema that HRC released on Feb. 9, which it attributes to the “HRC staff.”
The statement says HRC strongly supported efforts by Senate Democratic leaders to suspend the filibuster to enable the two voting rights bills to pass, which supporters said were needed to counter the numerous laws enacted by GOP-controlled state legislatures to restrict voting rights of minorities. The statement says HRC was especially troubled that Sinema and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) joined Republicans in voting against the temporary suspension of the filibuster, which resulted in the two voting rights bills dying on the Senate floor.
“We must hold politicians accountable,” the HRC statement says. “We have been working diligently to make sure we hold Senator Sinema accountable now and, in the future,” it says.
“Prior to the vote, HRC directly called on her to enable the Senate to change its rules to allow voting rights reform to pass; and then we directly let her know that we felt betrayed by her actions after the vote,” the statement continues.
The statement says HRC will use the vote by senators on the two voting rights bills, along with votes on other bills, to rate senators in HRC’s Congressional Scorecard, which rates all members of Congress on issues deemed important to the LGBTQ community.
HRC assigned Sinema a rating of 100, its highest possible rating, during the 114th Congress when Sinema served in the U.S. House. It gave her a 94 rating for the 115th Congress while she was also in the House. HRC assigned her a rating of 89 for the 116th Congress during her first two years as a U.S. senator.
To the disappointment of the Arizona LGBTQ leaders, the HRC statement does not commit to publicly denouncing Sinema or ending its political or financial support for the Arizona senator. Instead, the statement says HRC “is structured differently than the organizations that publicly condemned the Senator.”
According to its statement, HRC “endorses candidates, supports them through their election, works with them to pass legislation and policy, and holds them accountable for their commitments and actions.” It notes that with three years left in Sinema’s term in office, “we still have much work to do,” adding that HRC will be working on a wide range of pending legislation and judicial nominations, including the Voting Rights Act and the Equality Act.
“Strategically, we have to consider the long-range view and the impact of the work ahead,” the statement says. “With that in mind, we will continue to work with the current Senate to advance equality for our community in all of our intersecting identities. And as part of that work, we will continue to be honest with those who fall short of their commitments to us and our community,” the statement concludes.
In their joint letter to HRC, the Arizona LGBTQ leaders stated, “[W]e call on Human Rights Campaign to publicly disavow any future endorsement or financial support for Senator Sinema if she does not reverse her position on the filibuster.” The statement adds, “And we call on all donors to HRC to withhold further contributions until this is done.”
