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Sinema looks out for Sinema - so she'll fit right in at the U.S. Senate

Ruben Navarrette Jr. on

SAN DIEGO -- Republicans recently chose Mitch McConnell to continue on as Senate Majority Leader.

Meanwhile, Arizona voters elected Democrat Kyrsten Sinema to the U.S. Senate.

No word yet on whether Sinema plans to break from her party and support McConnell in all legislative matters because she sees him as her "boss."

It's worth mentioning given that not so long ago, Sinema pulled a stunt like that back home.

If such extreme bipartisan cooperation sounds crazy, then you've never covered Arizona politics.

I was in the sandbox in the 1990s, when I wrote for the Arizona Republic. There, I covered the infancy of the modern immigration debate. And I still check in periodically -- through friends, family, and sources -- on the bizarre happenings in the Grand Canyon State.

 

One of the stranger things happened nearly seven years ago when a group called Citizens for a Better Arizona launched an effort to recall Republican lawmaker Russell Pearce. He was the author of SB 1070, the state's racist immigration law, and he was also the powerful president of the Arizona state senate.

Pearce lost his recall election in November 2011.

Soon thereafter, according to the Phoenix New Times, at a meeting of the local chapter of Progressive Democrats of America, Sinema -- who was then an Arizona state senator -- was asked by Latina activist Lilia Alvarez why she hadn't supported the effort to recall Pearce.

According to Alvarez, and several others in the room, Sinema gave what has to be one of the most ridiculous answers in the history of Arizona politics.

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