Yesterday several Arizona groups gathered at the Arizona Capitol Building In Phoenix to call on Sinema to resign from office following reports of her spending tens of thousands on vacations, luxury hotels, high-end restaurants, private jets, limos, and wine, as well as her ties to the same Wall Street firms fueling Arizona’s housing crisis.
Ron Hansen from the Arizona Republic reports:
ICYMI:
Arizona Republic: Group demands Sen. Kyrsten Sinema resign over reports of extravagant travel spending
Ron Hansen // May 3, 2023
Several groups opposed to Sen. Kyrsten Sinema took turns Wednesday calling for her not to seek reelection or even resign her office, pointing to what they viewed as different snubs at different times.
The stark rhetoric underscores the broken relations between Sinema, I-Ariz., and some of those who supported her Senate run in 2018, when she was a Democrat.
Those relations curdled years ago in many cases, but could have new significance as Sinema weighs a 2024 campaign bid as an independent. If she does run, it will be over the protests of those on the left who see her as betraying their expectations and downshifting the Biden agenda.
The various activists came together at the state Capitol for an event billed as “Sinema Sold Out” organized by a group called Replace Sinema. Backed by about two dozen demonstrators, the groups noted recent reports of Sinema using campaign funds to travel in luxury and her reliance on contributions from financial and private equity executives as befitting a senator out of touch with her constituents.
The New York Post reported that Sinema had spent more than $20,000 in campaign funds on wine-related expenses in the past two years and nearly $10,000 at pricey restaurants in places like New York City and London.
A Sinema spokesperson declined to comment about the gathering in Phoenix, which they had not seen.
Aaron Marquez, executive director of Arizona VetsForward, a group for progressive military veterans, said his once-friendly relations with Sinema cooled over immigration policy differences he viewed as overly restrictive under then-President Donald Trump even before she was in the Senate.
After his own failed run for the state Legislature, Marquez said he and Sinema discussed the role of corporate money in politics, and he didn’t like what he heard.
“After that election, I sat down with her and I complained about all of the corporate money that was spent in my election against me and supporting my opponent. I very vividly remember Kyrsten saying, ‘I take all the corporate money, and I’ll turn it clean.’ That stuck with me.
“There’s a lot of us who kind of gave Kyrsten the benefit of the doubt,” he continued. “Once you take so much corporate money from some of the different interests, you owe a lot of people a lot of favors.”
For Aubrey Barnwell, pastor of First New Life Church in Phoenix and part of the African American Christian Clergy Coalition, it was a conversation that didn’t happen.
He wanted to meet with Sinema when Senate Democrats wanted to move ahead with changes to voting rights after state-level Republicans were passing laws intended to make voting more difficult, he said. It was an effort that ended when Democrats could not overcome the legislative filibuster that Sinema supports.
Barnwell said Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., requested and held a meeting with his group about the voting-rights legislation, which was named for the late Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., a legend in the civil rights movement. Sinema didn’t meet with them, he said.
“Sinema led us to believe she supported the freedom to vote but refused to work with Arizona constituents to accomplish it. Instead of strategizing with us on how to get the John Lewis Voting Rights Act passed, we had to use our efforts and resources to protest her.
“She claimed that John Lewis was a personal hero of hers but refused to get into ‘good trouble’ with us. Instead of collaborating with us, like Sen. Mark Kelly did, she ignored us,” Barnwell said.
Others, including Liz Luna of Rural Arizona Action, faulted Sinema for allowing the filibuster to prevent protecting abortion rights, while Bob Lord of the group Patriotic Millionaires said he could not get a meeting with her staff.
Read more here.
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