Independent Cinema

Hello it’s the weekend. This is The Weekender ☕

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) announced Friday that she has left the Democratic party and is now an independent.

Her explanation was full of platitudes about the extremity of the two parties and the “American people’s” supposed hunger for a politician like her, beholden to no one (except the pharmaceutical industry and large corporations, apparently).

In terms of Senate functioning, the move seems unlikely to change anything. She’s retaining her committee posts with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (D-NY) blessing and does not plan to caucus with the Republicans. That sounds a lot like what Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Angus King (I-ME) do, who operate as Democratic senators.

It seems to be a calculation more with her future in mind: this way, she nixes what was a very likely possibility that she’d fall to a robust primary challenge. If Democrats put up their own nominee, it heightens the chance that the two will split the left-leaning vote, threatening to give the Republican nominee an easy path.

The Democratic Party organs don’t put up challengers to King or Sanders, and they backed off in the Utah Senate race this year in the hopes that independent Evan McMullin could best Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT).

But Sinema has cost the party significantly more pain than King or Sanders. And she’s often done it with glee — see her cutesy curtsy and thumbs down when she voted against raising the minimum wage.

She’s also incredibly unpopular with Democrats in Arizona, thanks to these antics. She polls better with Republicans, but it’s likely that much of that approval is more of an expression of delight in Democrats’ pain than intent to vote for her when there’s a bona fide Republican on the ballot.

Ultimately, she’s making life harder for the Democratic party again. Party leaders are going to have to decide which fate is worse: keeping their wagon hitched to her for another reelection, especially given that she’d likely lose, or taking the chance that she wouldn’t leech enough of the middle-ground vote to doom a proper Democrat and lose the seat.

As for Sinema, she clearly knows that she wouldn’t survive a Democratic primary. But thanks to the intense ill-will she’s engendered among Democrats, her path to success beyond that remains incredibly steep. 
 

More on other news below. Let’s dig in.

— Kate Riga

Never Admit Defeat

Russian President Vladimir Putin went full Bond villain this week. Champagne glass in hand, he justified Russia’s attacks on Ukraine’s heating and energy infrastructure at a Kremlin reception, rehashing his typical justifications that Russia was only acting in self-defense.

It’s ludicrous on its face (remember who started the war?) but not as crazy as what happened next. After months of setbacks in a war that started off not going according to the Russians’ plans, Putin announced at the end of this week that everything is “going in order, everything is stable, we don’t have any issues or problems today.” He added that the conflict would only be resolved when various, unnamed parties to the conflict “agree with realities that have formed on land.”

— Josh Kovensky

Oh Where, Oh Where Has ECA Reform Gone?

If you’re one of the handful of election law junkies like me waiting with bated breath for the Electoral Count Reform Act to make it past the Senate, we (sorta-kinda) have good news!

Last we saw, Senator Amy Klobuchar mentioned potentially attaching the ECRA onto the omnibus spending bill to ensure it passed before the new Congress takes over. Since then, there’s been mostly silence from lawmakers on that front.

But Adav Noti, senior vice president of the Campaign Legal Center, told me that that’s a good sign. “The reason it’s not getting as much talk right now is because I think there’s an agreement to get it done,” he said. “The conversations are focusing on, you know, debates on other things that may or may not get done by the end of the year, but I think it’s almost certainly going to end up getting done.”

— Kaila Philo

‘Tis The Season For Corruption

Welcome to the 2022 ✨Golden Duke✨awards. This is TPM’s version of the Oscars except we celebrate all the horror-show politicians and delightfully abominable public figures who kept us in business this year.

We’re cheers-ing all the damaged duds that fall into these categories for Golden Dukes 2022:

1. Best Scandal — General Interest
2. Best Scandal — Local Venue
3. Meritorious Achievement in The Crazy
4. The Expertly Cringe Campaign Ad/Meme (please include a video link if you have one)
5. Most Convoluted Conspiracy Theory/Most Creative Take On The Big Lie
6. Forgotten Heroes — This category will serve as an “in memoriam” to all of our favorite characters who either lost the midterms or didn’t make it past their primaries.

Earlier this week I asked readers and TPM’s staff to submit nominations for each category. This was probably my favorite reader nomination: “Desantis Kill Disney cuz of gay.” Beautiful in its simplicity.

Now it’s voting time. Up first, Best Scandal — General Interest. There were so many excellent nominations it was hard to pick, but I’ve settled on the following nominees: 

Donald Trump, Mar-a-Lago documents case

Ron DeSantis, migrant flight to the vineyard
Sam Brinton, stolen Vera Bradley bag, among other things
Leonard Glenn Francis, the “Fat Leonard” bribery scandal

Head here to vote and read up on why these folks were nominated for this very scandalous category. May the worst man win.
 

— Nicole Lafond

• As the year comes to a close, so does the 117th session of Congress. Time is running low for Democrats trying to cram their priorities through the chambers before a divided Congress takes over in January. Parts of Biden’s legislative agenda are still scattered across the parliamentary floor, like expanding the child tax credit and reforming the Electoral Count Act (ECA). As has been the case for months, some experts are concerned about Congress’ ability to pass ECA reform during the lame-duck session, while others are optimistic.
• Rep. Paul Gosar’s (R-AZ) office had the best excuse for why the Congressman tweeted – and swiftly deleted – a post supporting Donald Trump’s calls to terminate the Constitution: people are too stupid to understand what the lawmaker was trying to say. “President Trump has reissued his statement to clarify what he meant,” his spokesperson said. “Those who claim either Trump or Congressman Gosar don’t believe in the Constitution are acting in bad faith or are low IQ people unable to comprehend our language and our actions.”
• A pro-Russian Ukrainian official who fed Rudy Giuliani dirt before the 2020 election is now facing federal charges in the U.S. Josh Kovensky has the latest.
• As the Supreme Court confronted the independent state legislature theory on Wednesday, much of the discussion centered on parsing the Constitution, leafing through historical evidence and arguing over the meaning of old cases. But Justice Elena Kagan paused the proceedings for a few minutes, expanding on what it would actually mean if state legislatures were allowed to become the only entities empowered to control federal elections, to the exclusion of state courts and state constitutions. It’s a role she’s been stepping into during arguments of late, taking the cases out of legal abstraction to articulate the full scope of the possible harms.
• In the McCarthy speakership saga: Scalise Is Not NOT Interested In Being Backup Plan For Speaker
• Special forces in Germany have broken up an alleged terrorist group that … get this … was plotting to overthrow the government because they believed “Germany is currently ruled by members of a so-called deep state.”