Kyrsten Sinema and Ruben Gallego pose for a rare selfie/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
By Ronald J. Hansen and Yvonne Wingett Sanchez | Arizona Republic
Kyrsten Sinema and Ruben Gallego both sought to tackle a civil rights problem.
Gallego wanted to ensure those with the most to gain figured more prominently in public outreach; Sinema wanted a more cautious message that avoided polarizing stereotypes and was more broadly popular.
Sinema’s approach won out, at least temporarily, and Gallego lost his job.
The clash between the future U.S. senator and the future U.S. representative happened in 2006, and the issue was related to gay marriage.
“They never got along,” said Steve May, a gay Republican former state lawmaker who co-chaired with Sinema the effort to defeat a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. Like others who worked against Arizona’s Proposition 107, he couldn’t identify the source of the friction.
“I do not remember the details of why or what. I just remember Kyrsten insisting that he not work directly for her,” he said. “I love them both. I appreciate their different personalities. But they always had a conflict.”
Joe Yuhas, a consultant who has been involved in Arizona politics for decades and whose firm paid Gallego and ran the campaign, described a similar dynamic.
“It was … my impression, simply a personality conflict,” he said. “And as hundreds of thousands of Arizonans have learned, both Ruben and Kyrsten have no shortage of personality.”
In some ways, the personal styles that have some Democrats now pondering a 2024 Senate primary battle royale between Sinema and Gallego were first evident behind the scenes of Arizona’s historic Proposition 107, the first statewide measure in the nation that sought to ban gay marriage that was rejected by voters.
Their time working on the ballot initiative together helped burnish their political brands in the Arizona Democratic Party as they came of age politically. It also foreshadowed the ongoing fight between warring wings of the Democratic Party, with pragmatism weighed against ideological purity and grassroots activism.
The story of Proposition 107 offers a distant glimpse into the party’s recent rise in Arizona and two of its more prominent Democrats in Washington.
