Sinema and Manchin literally 'high-fived' at Davos to show their support for keeping the Senate filibuster

19 January 2023

Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema have earned a reputation for being the two Democratic U.S. senators — or in Sinema’s case, a formerly Democratic U.S. senator — who are the most likely to vote with Republicans. Both of them have been a frequent source of frustration for the liberal/progressive wing of the Democratic Party, although they have their share of defenders among independents, centrists and Never Trump conservatives. And one of the things that has frustrated liberals and progressives is their unwavering defense of the Senate filibuster —something that, according to The New Republic, they took pride in during a panel discussion at the Davos World Economic Forum on Tuesday, January 17.

In fact, Manchin and Sinema, literally high-fived one another when the subject of the filibuster came up.

During the conversation, Sinema told attendees that hyper-partisanship in U.S. politics is not “healthy for democracy.” And when Manchin asked the now-independent Sinema if she still opposes abolishing the filibuster, she proudly replied, “That’s correct.” And the two of them high-fived.

Sinema spent much of her career as a Democrat, but in early December 2022, the Arizona senator officially announced that she had left the Democratic Party and registered as an independent (Manchin is still a Democrat). Sinema’s announcement came not long after Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock was reelected in Georgia and Democrats were celebrating having slightly increased their U.S. Senate majority. But Democrats still have an effective 51-seat Senate majority consisting of 48 actual Democrats and three independents who caucus with them: Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Sen. Angus Young of Maine, and now, Sinema.

Although Sinema, like Manchin, hasn’t been shy about voting with Republicans at times, she has been with Democrats on some key votes. For example, Sinema voted against confirming Justice Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court. And she voted with Democrats in favor of confirming President Joe Biden’s High Court appointee, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who is the Court’s first female African-American justice. But Democrats have often found them to be a hard sell when it comes to President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better agenda.

Sinema has argued that when Republicans, sooner or later, have a majority in the Senate, Democrats will be glad to have the filibuster — a view she expressed in a June 21, 2021 op-ed for the Washington Post. But her critics have responded that she is so dogmatic in her support of the filibuster that she opposes carve-out filibuster exceptions even when it comes to protecting voting rights.

The New Republic’s Tori Otten, in an article published on January 17, notes, “The filibuster is a process used to block a bill’s passage in the Senate…. It takes 60 votes to end debate on a bill, so senators in the minority party can still block a bill’s passage through the filibuster.… Democrats have been trying for years to abolish or at least amend the filibuster, but there have been holdouts — notably Sinema and Manchin. The two senators have made names for themselves as perpetual thorns in Joe Biden’s side, blocking some of the president’s keystone legislation, such as the $2 trillion Build Back Better package aimed at tackling climate change and social welfare.”

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