lpetrich
Contributor
Is Arisona Senator Kyrsten Sinema a Democrat in Name Only? (DINO)
- Kyrsten Sinema was a Prada Socialist once, but who cares now? - 2017 Oct 4
- Kyrsten Sinema Capitalism letter 22 Feb 2002 - Newspapers.com - 2018 Sep 17
- Kyrsten Sinema's anti-war activist past under scrutiny as she runs for Senate - CNN Politics - 2018 Oct 12
- Before they were moderates: Sinema, other Dems shed liberal past for 2018 midterms | Fox News - 2018 Nov 1
- Kyrsten Sinema Wants You To Know She’s Not A Progressive | HuffPost - 2018 Nov 5
- Kyrsten Sinema Swore In To Congress On The Constitution - 2019 Jan 4
- Kyrsten Sinema Unsure Which Party She’ll Vote For In 2020 - 2019 Oct 29
- How Kyrsten Sinema Went from Lefty Activist to Proud Neoliberal Democrat - 2021 Mar
- The Senate's Worst Democrap-- If The GOP Wasn't So Anti-Gay She'd Have Jumped The Fence Already - 2021 Mar 21
- How Kyrsten Sinema Sold Out | The Nation - 2021 Mar 22
Rather contradictory.Sinema has two siblings, an older brother and younger sister.[17][18] Her father was an attorney. Her parents divorced when she was a child and her mother, who had custody of the children, remarried. With her siblings, mother, and stepfather, Sinema moved to DeFuniak Springs, Florida, a small town in the Panhandle.[18] When her stepfather lost his job and the bank foreclosed on their home, the family lived for three years in an abandoned gas station.[19] Sinema has said that for two years they had no toilet or electricity while living there.[20] She later recalled, "My stepdad built a bunk bed for me and my sister. We separated our bunk bed from the kitchen with one of those big chalkboards on rollers. I knew that was weird. A chalkboard shouldn't be a wall. A kitchen should have running water."[20] Sinema was raised as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.[21] According to journalist Jonathan Martin in The New York Times, Sinema has given "contradictory answers about her early life", and Sinema's mother and stepfather had filed court documents saying they had made monthly payments for gas, electricity, and phone bills, even though Sinema had said they had been "without running water or electricity".[22] Asked whether she had embellished details from her childhood, Sinema said, "I've shared what I remember from my childhood. I know what I lived through."[22]
Sinema graduated as valedictorian from Walton High School in DeFuniak Springs at age 16 and went on to earn her B.A. from Brigham Young University (BYU) in 1995 at age 18.[23][19] She left The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints after graduating from BYU.[21] Sinema returned to Arizona in 1995.[24]
Sinema worked as a social worker from 1995 to 2002 in the Phoenix metropolitan area's Washington Elementary School District[25] and received a Master of Social Work degree from Arizona State University in 1999. In 2004 she earned a J.D. degree from Arizona State University College of Law and became a criminal defense lawyer.[19][25] In 2003 Sinema became an adjunct professor teaching master's-level policy and grant-writing classes at Arizona State University School of Social Work and an adjunct Business Law Professor at Arizona Summit Law School, formerly known as Phoenix School of Law.[26] In 2008, Sinema completed the Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government program for senior executives in state and local government as a David Bohnett LGBTQ Victory Institute Leadership Fellow. In 2012 she earned a Ph.D. in justice studies, also from Arizona State.[19][27]