Senator Kyrsten Sinema is leaving office, and the avid traveler appears to have ramped up her trips before leaving Congress.
She is an American Airlines Executive Platinum member whose staff put out a 37 page memo on meeting her travel expectations. She likes room temperature bottled water available at all times (honestly, so do I). She likes a weekly hour-long massage. She wants to avoid flying Southwest though they’re a huge carrier in her home state. She “does not like to fly” and asks staffers to pick her preferred seats when she does.
And she has appeared to schedule fundraising events around marathons and triathlons she competes in so that her campaign can cover the travel costs. She tends to favor Ritz-Carltons. Seems clever! Except maybe not all of the travel categorized as being for a fundraiser involved any actual fundraising.
Now, in her last months in office, she has spent nicely out of her remaining campaign coffers to fund international travel and high-end meals, like $1,300 at Nobu Tokyo. While there she hiked Mount Fuji.
In the third quarter of this year, Sinema (I-Ariz.) spent roughly $216,000 on expenses related to travel — including trips to Japan and France — and another $152,000 on security, according to her latest campaign finance report.
In all, Sinema’s campaign spent $650,536 between July 1 and Sept. 30, far more than her other retiring peers in the upper chamber — such as Sens. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), whose campaign listed $224,521 in spending and Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), whose campaign shelled out $23,440.
Senator Sinema’s campaign still had about $5 million cash at the end of September. And it’s like Brewster’s Millions. She can spend it on travel, but can’t really use it to buy United’s Global Services with prepaid travel. And she probably can’t just spend it all on GHA Discovery Dollars to use on hotel stays later.
She can use the leftover money to create a political action committee, though, and use the fund for her ongoing (travel) expenses that way.
Our tax dollars at work.
Another asshole politician that is as impressive as dog feces.
Well, it’s not a good look, but it was campaign money, not taxpayer money.
She spent as much as she could. Pelosi Spent More Than $500K On Private Jets.
And it’s all legal.
Atleast it was campaign money. Donald Trump used tax payer money for his travel. He paid millions to his own hotels and Mar a lago estate
@ Don G — You seem to forget that the treasonist runnig for President again spent billions renting his own hotel rooms and flying an army of people back and forth to Florida to play golf constantly.
Poor Trump, who had to pay $200,000 to get Melania to campaign for him.
Now do Pelosi.
Flies all the way to Tokyo and eats at Nobu??? You’re kidding right?
Do the orange grifter next; there’s no way that he did not obliterate any records of spending other people’s money to benefit himself.
This is a rip-off of money from campaign donors and taxpayers. And yet this is a tiny drop in the bucket of scummy scam behavior compared to what Don the Con Tr*mp has done and continues to do ever since he first put his hat in the ring to run for US President and solicited campaign donations.
So wrong
Let her buy her own Ritz and Nobu
Campaign coffers funded by her hedge fund and private equity buddies who she richly repaid by refusing to cast the deciding vote to end the carried interest tax preference.
Who cares? How is this travel newsworthy?
You could write this story about thousands of people from all industries.
Obscene. Good riddance
@Gene
That’s called “whataboutism”, the lowest form of conversation. What are your opinions on Sinema’s spending? Does Trump’s misdeeds affect the legitimacy or morality of Sinema’s travel expenditures in your eyes? Is what is “right” in your eyes morally relative and not absolute like it is for the rest of us normal people.
This is why all elected officials need to publish every 6 months all of their expenses; so the public can see how much money they are wasting of tax payer dollars.
Glad she is on the way out. Sinema did not do the people of Arizona a lick of good.
Another “rules for thee but not for me” politician. Perhaps less emphasis should be placed on DEI training and more on ETHICS. “Just because you can doesn’t mean you should” has also been lost on our Elected Heroes.
Politicians and Ethics……two words that rarely go together.
The two party system is a crony club that corrupts absolutely.
To paraphrase : Give me Libertarian or give me death..!.
Well, as Maya Angelou was wont to say: “When someone tells you who they are, believe them the first time.”
Ms. Sinema, is my Senator. Apart from posturing about the Senate, she and her staff are worthless. n.b.: for partisans: John McCain was no better, in fact, worse. I can only suppose since she decided to chuck it up in the Senate that she has a cushy consulting/lobbying/academic position to slide into.
But… I am both saddened and disappointed, but not surprised at the name-calling on this thread. It’s a perfect example of how what we today call the elites, and the military/intelligence industrial complex sets 50% of America against the other 50%, so we’ll keep calling each other names instead of looking for the real problem.
I believe the Romans called it bread and circuses.
Funny how all the Libs here including DH and Gene quickly rushed to her rescue making excuses and once again bringing up DT who this article has nothing to do with. Pathetic but, that is how they’re idol KH operates so why would you expect anything different?
Only in politics would you elect someone public office with the responsibility and authority of a fortune 1000 ceo, then expect to travel like Joe Sixpack, lol.
Congress could however fix this by requiring Members to return the funds if they’re no longer running for office. I won’t hold my breath.
She did her job protecting hedge fund billionaires from paying any taxes. Time to celebrate a job well done.