Kyrsten Sinema was born into a conservative Mormon family in Tucson, Arizona on July 12, 1976. She earned a bachelor’s degree in social work from Brigham Young University in 1995, a Master of Social Work degree from Arizona State University (ASU) in 1999, a J.D. from ASU College of Law in 2004, and a Ph.D in Justice Studies from ASU in 2012. Politically, Sinema is a leftist who has described herself as a “Prada socialist.”

Sinema was a social worker in the Washington Elementary School District (of Arizona) from 1995-2002. In 2000 she worked for Ralph Nader‘s presidential campaign on the Green Party USA ticket.

In 2002 Sinema was hired as an adjunct professor in the ASU School of Social Work. That same year, she co-founded Local to Global Justice, a grassroots advocacy group known for its hostility toward Israel and its support for the Palestinian “right of return.”

In the early 2000s as well, Sinema organized for the Arizona Alliance for Peace and Justice, a group whose members commonly denounced U.S. military aid to Israel, the expansion of Israeli settlements “into Palestinian lands,” and Israel’s “disproportionate” use of “violence and oppression.”

In May 2002, Sinema was a signatory to a “May Day and Cinco de Mayo Greetings” advertisement in the Communist Party USA paper People’s Weekly World which stated: “We commit ourselves to resist the Bush Administration’s drive for ever increasing military spending and a never-ending state of war. We must redouble our efforts to … drive the ultra right out of Congress next November.”

In 2002 and early 2003, Sinema organized fifteen separate rallies protesting the possibility of U.S. military action in Iraq and Afghanistan. The largest of these events – a February 15, 2003 demonstration in Phoenix – featured flyers depicting an American soldier as a menacing skeleton and stating: “You can help us push back U.S. terror in Iraq and the Middle East.” The day before this rally was held, Sinema told the radio audience of local libertarian broadcaster Ernest Hancock: “Libertarians, Democrats, Republicans, Greens, independents, anarchists, socialists, communists, whoever wants to come [to the protest]. They’re all welcome.” When Hancock suggested that he himself, as an antiwar activist, would be justified in going “over there and … fighting for the Taliban,” Sinema replied: “Fine. I don’t care if you want to do that, go ahead.”

In a 2003 op-ed piece, Sinema characterized former presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush as “the real Saddam and Osama lovers.”

That same year, Sinema used an online Yahoo chat group to invite people to at least two ASU events featuring Lynne Stewart, the radical attorney for Islamic Group terrorist leader Omar Abdel Rahman. Though Stewart at that time was under indictment for having illegally relayed messages from the incarcerated Rahman to his confederates beyond the prison walls, Sinema maintained that Stewart’s only crime had been “doing her job for the past 27 years as an outspoken criminal defense lawyer.”

In 2004 Sinema was elected, as a Democrat, to the Arizona House of Representatives. She subsequently developed a close working relationship with the anti-war group Code Pink.

In 2005, Sinema launched not only her political career, but also a career as a criminal defense attorney.

As the Iraq War moved into its third year, Sinema in 2006 wrote: “As one of the core organizers against the war from day one, I have always and will always continue to oppose war in all its forms.”

Also that year, Sinema openly praised Marwan Ahmad, a native Palestinian who had been expelled from a Phoenix political committee for “promoting messages of intolerance against Israel [and] the Jewish community,” as someone who had given “13 years of service to the mosaic ethnic communities here in the Valley of the Sun.”

In 2006 as well, Sinema articulated her contempt for women who preferred to be wives and mothers rather than pursue careers in the business world. “These women,” she said, “who act like staying at home, leeching off their husbands or boyfriends, and just cashing the checks is some sort of feminism because they’re choosing to live that life, that’s bullsh**. I mean, what the f*** are we really talking about here?”

In 2008, Sinema was a delegate for Barack Obama at the Democratic National Convention.

In 2008 and 2009, Sinema spoke at the annual “Take Back America” and “America’s Future Now” conferences organized by the Institute for Policy Studies and the Campaign for America’s Future.

In her 2009 book, Unite and Conquer, Sinema wrote that whereas she had tried to be a “righteously indignant crusader” and “bomb- thrower” in the early part of her political career, she had since learned that a more temperate approach made her more effective as a legislator.

In 2009, Sinema was part of a national team of state elected officials who helped craft Barack Obama’s signature Obamacare legislation. To reward her efforts, the president invited Sinema to attend the signing of the bill in March 2010.

In a 2010 speech to a Netroots Nation convention, Sinema derided conservatives as “Neanderthals.”

In 2012, Sinema was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives by the voters of Arizona’s 9th Congressional District, thereby becoming the first openly bisexual member of Congress.

In a March 2011 speech to the Texas Stonewall Democratic Caucus, Sinema condemned the conservative Tea Party movement for allegedly trying to “mainstream hatred in this country.”

In September 2014, Sinema praised the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) for its “most commendable” work and for being “an ally for both Muslims and other groups and individuals who have experienced religious discrimination, defamation, or hate crimes of any kind.” In October 2017, she expressed her “utmost thanks and appreciation” for CAIR’s “continued efforts to promote peace and unity.” And on September 29, 2012, Sinema and former CAIR-Arizona board president Mohamed El-Sharkawy co-hosted a fundraiser at the Tempe home of an Islamist named Hassan Elsaad.

In 2018, Sinema ran for a U.S. Senate seat in Arizona. To view her positions on a variety of key issues, see Footnote #1 below.^[1]

Over the years, Sinema has served variously as a board-of-directors member for such organizations as Community Outreach and Advocacy for Refugees, the YWCA of Maricopa County, the Center for Progressive Leadership, the Young Elected Officials’ Network, the Progressive Democrats of America, the Arizona Death Penalty Forum, Girls for a Change, and the Progressive States Network. She also has been a spokesperson for Women In Black, and a steering-committee member of the Human Rights Campaign‘s Arizona branch.

Moreover, Sinema has received a number of honors from leftist organizations. These include the NAACP Civil Rights Award, the Planned Parenthood Legislative CHOICE Award, and the Sierra Club’s Most Valuable Player Award.

On March 5, 2024, Sinema announced that she planned to retire from the Senate at the end of 2024 because “the constant pull to the extremes by both political parties” was incompatible with her desire to “choose civility, understanding, listening, [and] working together to get stuff done.”

Further Reading: “Kyrsten Sinema” (Keywiki.org and Ballotpedia.org); “The Ridiculous Kyrsten Sinema” (National Review Online, 10-24-2018); “… Sinema Defended Collaborator with Terror Group …” (by Daniel Greenfield, FrontPageMag.com, 10-10-2018); “Adult Sinema” (Washington Free Beacon, 4-20-2012); “Dem Senate Candidate Kyrsten Sinema Okay with Joining the Taliban” (by Daniel Greenfield, FrontPageMag.com, 10-12-2018); “Dem. Senate Candidate Sinema in 2003: ‘I Don’t Care’ if People Join Taliban” (National Review Online, 10-12-2018); “Kyrsten Sinema Promoted a Terrorist Lawyer” (by Andrew C. McCarthy, National Review Online, 10-15-2018).

Footnotes:

1. On a variety of key issues, Sinema:
   • strongly supports the idea that all women should have an unrestricted right to taxpayer-funded abortion-on-demand at any stage of pregnancy;
   • favors government-enforced affirmative action policies designed to compensate nonwhites and women for the effects of past and present discrimination;
   • strongly favors the expansion of Obamacare as a step toward a government-run, single-payer healthcare system;
   • favors a steeply progressive income-tax structure where high earners pay disproportionately high rates, and where corporate taxes are increased significantly;
   • believes that the government should impose fewer restrictions on immigration, and favors the implementation of a pathway-to-citizenship for illegal aliens;
   • strongly favors the enactment of carbon taxes, higher CAFE standards for automobiles, and federal funding for the research-and-development of wind and solar power technology;
   • strongly opposes Voter ID laws as racist schemes that are designed to suppress minority voting;
   • strongly believes that the enactment of voucher programs through which low-income parents can take their children out of substandard public schools and send them instead to superior private schools, constitutes bad public policy;
   • believes that the availability of guns should be severely restricted, even for law-abiding citizens who have never been convicted of a crime, and that the 2nd Amendment does not guarantee Americans the right to possess a firearm; and
   • calls for a significant hike in the national hourly minimum wage requirement for all workers.