(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . So, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema wants to hear from me [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-05-19 Sen. Sinema campaigned for lower drug prices in 2018. Now she wants to hear from me, but there's no option to ask her why she lied during the campaign. I’ve emailed Arizona’s senior Senator Kyrsten Sinema more than a few times, so I imagine I’m on some list in her office, although it can’t be the “good” list by any means. When she was our state legislator I donated to her campaign every election and gave her my vote. But that support vanished after she entered Congress, and, as Arizona Rep. Ruben Gallego recently observed, every sentence out of Sinema’s mouth became a noun, a verb, and “both sides are responsible” (which she recently said about the debt ceiling debate). So, last night I received an email from Sen. Sinema’s office with the title, “We want to hear from you.” Okay, I’m game, but rather than allow for an open-ended reply, the email offers a list of topics she thinks her constituents might be interested in. Check out the screenshot from her email, especially the order of voter concerns, beginning with “Securing the Border.” That’s it, those are the issues Sen. Sinema believes Arizonans are concerned about. The three at the top are probably the same issues that show up in every Republican email: border, inflation, Fentanyl. Be afraid, be very afraid of an invasion of drug smugglers! I’m glad she lists veteran benefits and student loan debt, but other than the generic “health care decisions” option, she does not even mention abortion, a right Arizona is swiftly eliminating. The Number One concern for many Americans is gun violence, while Arizona passes even more NRA-backed policies. However, other than her namby pamby “crime” issue, there’s nothing about gun safety legislation, most of which, like background checks, is supported by 80-90 percent of voters. Nor is there a word about assaults on the LGBTQ community, including book bans, limits on gender affirming care, drag show bans, and attacks on school curricula, all of which are underway in Arizona (we’d be Florida without Katie Hobbs’ veto pen). A huge concern for many Arizonans is the water crisis and the assaults on our fragile environment by mining companies, developers, and other extractive industries, but other than “Energy Future” those giant concerns go missing. I also note an absence of anything relating to people of color, whether it’s removing books featuring diverse characters and histories from libraries, or police shootings of unarmed black men. The Arizona Legislature is also going after the voting rights of minority populations, but I don’t see an option to express concern about that. And where do I say anything about the Republican Party’s assault on democracy itself, from whitewashing Jan. 6, to attempts to stall or even end investigations of the trump crime family, to Nazis who work in Arizona’s congressional delegation? Or maybe you’re anxious about a bought-and-sold Supreme Court hellbent on overturning decades of progress … Sinema doesn’t care about that. Nor, importantly, do I see anything about Senators who turned their backs on constituents and not only voted against a livable minimum wage and lower drug prices (after promising to fight for them during the campaign), but then abandoned the Democratic Party itself. Tell me, Sen. Sinema, where on your form do I express dismay about lying, back-stabbing elected officials who betray their constituents, and primarily use their position to grift hundreds of thousands of dollars from banking and pharmaceutical industries? I’m not the only person who’d like to check the box about senatorial grifting, but it doesn’t exist on her reply form. It appears other Arizona voters are also interested: A complaint filed Thursday with the Federal Election Commission asks regulators to open a formal investigation into campaign spending by Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema. Sinema has faced mounting questions about the legitimacy of more than $180,000 in campaign expenditures dating back to 2019 on luxury hotels, posh resorts, Michelin-star restaurants, international travel and winery visits. Go Ruben! He will represent constituents, not the filibuster or corporate greed. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/5/19/2170245/-So-Sen-Kyrsten-Sinema-wants-to-hear-from-me Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/