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As a result of US Senator Kyrsten Sinema's decision to register as an independent and quit the Democratic Party, President Joe Biden's party now has a solid majority in the US Senate.
Despite the senator's departure for Arizona, the Democratic majority in the Senate is still split at 51 Democratic representatives to 49 Republicans as of last Tuesday's Georgia victory. However, the majority is now at 50.
The senator said in a message shared on Twitter this morning: "In a natural extension of my service since I was first elected to Congress, I have joined the growing number of Arizona citizens who reject party politics by declaring my independence from Washington's bankrupt partisan system and formally registering as an independent."
Sinema added that her decision will not change her work in the Senate and recalled that over the past four years she has worked "proudly" with other senators and has helped forge consensus on numerous laws. Sinema is known for holding independent and occasionally opposing positions to her party on numerous crucial votes for Democrats.
Since taking office as Arizona's upper house representative in 2019, Kyrsten Sinema has shifted her allegiance to more conservative causes and contested the approval of initiatives from the Joe Biden-led Democratic administration on a number of occasions.
She and Joe Manchin, the primary Democratic headbreaker in the Senate and a conservative on par with Kyrsten Sinema, have also prevented Biden's party from approving a filibuster rule exception that would have allowed initiatives to be processed without the necessary qualified majority of sixty seats.
On other times, she came out on her party's side for significant approvals, such as the climate and fiscal plan, which was approved in August with the support of all Democrats, including Sinema and Manchin, who at the last minute decided to endorse a seemingly dead proposal.
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