Meghan McCain, the daughter of the late GOP Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), defended Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) after she came under fire for saying she supports the legislative filibuster.
“Same journalists and pundits who go OUT OF THEIR WAY to bring up my Dad and applaud him for his maverick ways are sure spending a lot of energy ripping apart and defaming [Sinema] for being a maverick against her party,” McCain, a host on ABC’s “The View,” said in a tweet Tuesday.
“No attempt at intellectual consistency anywhere,” she added.
Sinema reiterated in an op-ed for The Washington Post on Monday that she would not consider doing away with the legislative filibuster, a day before the Senate was set to consider a sweeping voting rights bill that Republicans said they would block using the procedural tool.
“It’s no secret that I oppose eliminating the Senate’s 60-vote threshold,” Sinema wrote. “My support for retaining the 60-vote threshold is not based on the importance of any particular policy. It is based on what is best for our democracy. The filibuster compels moderation and helps protect the country from wild swings between opposing policy poles.”
Sen. John McCain, who died in 2018, was both praised and criticized for bucking his party’s leadership on several issues during his final years in Congress, most notably on an attempted repeal of the Affordable Care Act.
Sinema and fellow moderate Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) have faced heavy pressure this year from the Democratic Party’s progressive wing over their position on the filibuster, with activists and more liberal lawmakers arguing the pair are impeding President Biden’s agenda.
A group of progressive organizations earlier this week announced they would launch a $1.5 million television ad campaign attacking Sinema over her support for the filibuster.