Kyrsten Sinema Biography

Kyrsten Lea Sinema was born on July 12, 1976, in Tucson, Arizona, U.S., to Dan and Marilyn Sinema. She was the middle child in the family and had an elder brother and a younger sister. She is of Frisian descent, and her forefathers had immigrated to the United States from Netherlands. Her grandfather had finally settled in Arizona, where Kyrsten was born.

Her father worked as an attorney, and the family led a decent life. Kyrsten initially attended the local schools. However, her parents fought a lot, and they eventually divorced. Her mother gained the custody of all three children. After a while, she married another man.

Things turned worse when her stepfather lost his job. For a few years after that, the family became homeless. They moved to a small town in Florida. She claimed that they had to live without electricity and water for 2 years in a remodeled gas station.

However, a New York Times journalist later claimed that most of her “childhood poverty” stories were fabricated and that her family were able to pay the bills for gas, electricity, and water the entire time. Nevertheless, Kyrsten Sinema has refuted the claim, saying that she knows what she has gone through in her childhood and that she did not need to prove anything to anyone.

Fortunately, their situation improved, and Kyrsten finished high school from the Walton High School in Florida. She then joined the Brigham Young University, thus moving to Utah. In her early 20s, she moved back to Arizona and began a career as a social worker at the Washington Elementary School District.

In 2004, she joined the Arizona State University and earned a JD degree. She then earned a PhD from the same university in the early 2010s.

Kyrsten Sinema began her political career when she was in her mid-20s. In the 2000s, she campaigned fiercely for independent candidate Ralph Nader’s presidential run. Around the same time, she joined the Arizona Green Party. She also ran as an independent candidate for local offices in the early 2000s but lost twice.

In her early political campaigns, Kyrsten Sinema made her views quite clear. As a member of the Green Party, she stated capitalism was the root cause of many problems that America faced. She was also anti-war and protested against the American involvement in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. She thus exhibited her liberal sentiments openly.

In 2003, she went many steps ahead and claimed that former presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush had been pro-Saddam back when they had found it beneficial. She also accused her own country of spreading terror in the Middle Eastern region.

She also faced a lot of criticism for her bold opinions. During an interview, she claimed that she had no problem with anyone who wished to join the Taliban and fight on their behalf. In the mid-2000s, she hosted a radio show with a famous 9/11 “truther.” There were claims that 9/11 was an “inside job,” and she called for a full investigation into the matter.

In 2002, she lost her first election when she stood for a seat in the Arizona House of Representatives. She contested five candidates and finished in the last place, with 8% of the total votes going in her favor.

She joined the Democratic Party in 2005 and won a seat in the Arizona House of Representatives from the 15th district. She served in the office from 2005 to 2011. In 2010, she was elected to the Arizona senate.

She made her intentions clear in 2005, when she faced a Republican members’ derogatory comment on the LGBT community and thrashed him. A year later, she claimed that she was the most liberal member in the U.S. senate. She also supported the DREAM Act, which was formed to ease the immigration laws in the country. She also propagated her feminist views and wholly supported same-sex marriages in the state of Arizona.

She struggled to abolish prepositions 107 and 102. In June 2009, she became one of the few state legislators to be appointed by President Barack Obama to the White House Health Reform Task Force. This group of legislators drafted what would later be known as the Affordable Care Act, or the Obamacare. She was one of key members of the committee and was invited when the bill was officially signed in 2010.

As her popularity grew, in 2011, she declared that she would run for a seat in the House of Representatives in the 2012 general elections. She formally announced in early 2012 that she would contest from Arizona’s 9th congressional district.

Despite the fact that she could have kept her seat in the Arizona House of Representatives by law, she resigned from her position and concentrated on the upcoming 2012 elections.

She stood against the Republican Party’s Vernon Parker, and the campaign was heavily publicized in the media owing to its “nasty” nature. Both the candidates opposed each another fiercely, and millions of dollars were spent from both sides in creating ads attacking one another. Parker’s campaign was derogatory and accused Kyrsten Sinema of being a hippie and a pagan. In her defense, she claimed that she was only adhering to her “secular” approach and that her religious identity should not be questioned.

Kyrsten Sinema gained over 10,000 more votes than Vernon and emerged a winner. In the next general elections, that took place in 2014, she crushed her Republican opponent, Wendy Rogers, and was elected for a second term. She was re-elected in 2016.

In 2017, she announced that she would contest for the Class I United States senate seat. On January 3, 2019, she was officially elected to the U.S. senate, and instead of taking her oath on the Bible, she insisted on taking an oath on the constitutions of the U.S. and Arizona.

As a senator, she lent her support to improving the defense and security assistance bills. She also voted to bring in the Natural Resources Management Act and supported William Barr for the position of attorney general.

In March that year, she voted against President Trump’s declaration of emergency regarding the U.S.–Mexico border situation. She also voted against the Green New Deal.

She has, over time, become a centrist, or a moderate Democrat. In 2013, a report suggested that she was 57% liberal and 43% conservative. She later came to be known as one of the most “conservative” Democrats in the senate.

Although Kyrsten Sinema was born into a religious Christian family, she has claimed that she grew up being a non-theist. She is thus known as the only member of the U.S. congress who is a non-theist. However, she has refused to attach any label to herself and claims she is “secular.”

She was married to Blake Dain but divorced him later.

Kyrsten Sinema is bisexual and has also flaunted her sexual orientation openly during her election campaign.

In January 2018, a New York man who was stalking her was arrested and charged.