Sinema Has Received Tens of Thousands in Donations from Entities Connected to Multi-Level Marketing Schemes and Dietary Supplements – including the Direct Selling Alliance and DeVos-owned Amway
Stephen Robinson at Wonkette highlights how Kyrsten Sinema’s ties to multi-level marketing schemes could help explain her opposition to the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act.
The pro-union legislation has found an enemy in multi-level marketing schemes, who make money from their own customers becoming salespeople only to make little or no profits on unreliable products. Unsurprisingly, Sinema has received over $40,000 from corporate PACs and trade associations linked to MLMs and dietary supplements.
As noted below, Sinema has sponsored pro-MLM legislation and has taken several actions to promote the dietary supplement industry as a member of Congress.
Excerpts below:
ICYMI:
Wonkette: Kyrsten Sinema Loves Pyramid Schemes So Much She Might Even Hold A Town Hall For Them!
Stephen Robinson // April 3, 2023
Joe Biden, with a few notable exceptions, is openly pro-labor, so it seemed as if passage of the pro-union Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act would prove an early, easy win when Democrats held the House and Senate.
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However, a major obstacle to the legislation was Kyrsten Sinema of the Sinema Party, both due to her maddening support for the filibuster and her slavish devotion to big business.
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This brings us to Sinema’s ongoing support for multi-level marketing (MLM). She’s one of the few lawmakers MLMs consider enough of an ally to keep on payroll to donate to consistently. MLMs are often described as pyramid schemes, and while they might argue they are more “a conical-tiered multi-flow-through marketing entity,” they function very much like pyramid schemes.
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MLMs considered the PRO Act an existential threat, as the legislation would make it harder to scam people classify suckers workers as independent contractors.
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Back in 2021, Sinema received $15,000 in donations from firms affiliated with the Direct Selling Alliance.
Sinema, when she was in the House, co-sponsored the Bizarro World-titled Anti-Pyramid Promotional Scheme of 2017, which the Direct Sellers Association personally designed to protect pyramid schemes. Specifically, the bill redefined the term “pyramid scheme” in a way that allows almost any pyramid scheme to escape the definition.
This February, Sinema teamed up with Republican Sen. Mike Lee to introduce the Natural Product Industry Week Resolution, which gushed over the supposed contributions of the “natural products industry to the American diet and economy.” In 2019, Sinema and Republican Sen. Tim Scott asked “Internal Revenue Services (IRS) Commissioner Charles P. Rettig to allow nutritional and dietary supplements that carry health or structure/function claims to be considered “medical expenses” under Health Savings Accounts (HSA) and Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA).
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