by - Kyrsten Cinema employees had a tough time on Capitol Hill with complaints about a “depressing” workplace.
- Last week, the Arizona lawmaker left the Democratic Party.
- A spokesperson for former Senator Joe Lieberman said his team would no longer be “the highlight of the Democrats’ happy hour.”
The staff of Senator Kyrsten Cinema had a tough time on Capitol Hill when some junior aides of the Arizona lawmaker previously complained to Insider that they had to navigate a “depressing” workplace routinely teeming with hateful phone calls.
And that was before their boss left the Democratic Party to become independent last week. Speaking to Insider, a former Hill employee said he was dismayed by the recent revolt by Democratic lawmakers and their colleagues, which is likely to trigger disdain, hostilities and awkward encounters for those working for Cinema.
“I doubt many Cinema employees will be the highlight of the Democrats’ happy hour,” said Scott Overland, a former spokesman for Sen at the time. Joe Lieberman, who made a similar change in 2006.
The one-time Connecticut Democrat and 2000 vice presidential candidate jumped ship after losing his party’s primary. Lieberman signed up as an independent, ran for the same seat and won, and spent the second part of his career slurring his Democratic colleagues by saying bad words to then-Republican Arizona Senator John McCain and then-Democratic Senator Barack. Obama from Illinois.
Lieberman’s surprising departure from the party was too much for Cinema until a decade ago. The newly emerged video shows the Democrats attacking Lieberman for disloyalty after losing their 60-vote majority in 2010.
“So that means Democrats can stop bowing to Joe Lieberman and instead look for other avenues.” said the cinema In an attempt to lure Lieberman into political apathy.
While Lieberman’s decision raises eyebrows, Overland said the then-18-year-old Senate veteran and his team were probably better suited than a first-class lawmaker to handle the consequences.
“He (and his team) had many good relationships with other senators and their staff,” Overland wrote of the goodwill Lieberman has earned throughout his career. “You. Cinema has been in office for less than one term and has almost always been a headache for the party.”
Still, Overland said he suspects Democratic lawmakers won’t go too hard to avoid pushing Cinema into the GOP camp. “Given the weak majority, most Democrats will pretend to be indulgent until we get close to ’24,” he told Insider.
A Cinema spokesperson declined to comment on this news.
Cinema’s former communications director, John LaBombard, said on Friday that Cinema had notified his team of his decision in advance and had not heard any negative reactions so far. “People I’ve talked to have been pretty positive about it,” he said.
But Sacha Haworth, Cinema’s former campaign communications director, tweeted He said his former boss’s move was “a slap in the face to anyone who broke their back to get elected in 2018”.
Haworth advises Insider Change Cinema to hold the PAC accountable and help elect a “true Democrat” to that seat.
“He likes to say he did everything for Arizonans, but it’s pretty clear that he did everything for himself and to maintain his own relevance, including this latest political calculation to be independent,” Haworth said.
