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As recent polls show, Kyrsten Sinema<\/strong> is not a particularly popular figure among her constituents, with 43% of Arizonians saying last year that they had a negative view of her<\/a>. And a new report is unlikely to endear her to the people she represents!<\/p>\n The Daily Beast reports<\/a> that Sinema has spent approximately $210,000 on private flights since 2020, a figure that might not tick anyone off were it not for the fact that the tab was covered by her Senate office budget\u2014i.e., taxpayer funds. According to the outlet, \u201cthe Arizona senator has booked at least 11 private plane trips since 2020, with five of them coming in 2023, when she spent $116,000 on chartered air travel. According to [publicly available] reports, nearly all of the flights were chartered for travel within Arizona, as the senator and several of her staffers hit several cities and towns around the state on one- or two-day trips.\u201d In one instance, Sinema booked a PJ to fly between DC and Arizona, \u201ca journey,\u201d the Daily Beast points out, \u201cthat lawmakers typically fly on commercial airlines.\u201d Last August, she dropped more than $50,000 in taxpayer funds on a flight for herself and four staffers from Washington to the Grand Canyon.<\/p>\n While choosing to spend taxpayer money\u2014and a large chunk of it at that\u2014on private flights is not illegal and does not break any code of ethics per se, it certainly is a choice.<\/em> As the Daily Beast notes, \u201cby comparison, Sinema\u2019s home-state colleague, Senator Mark Kelly<\/strong> (D-Ariz.), appears to have never used his Senate budget for privately chartered flights, even though he regularly travels to the same places in the state that Sinema does.\u201d Sinema\u2019s office did not respond to the Daily Beast\u2019s questions about the senator\u2019s use of private flights.<\/p>\n Also, there\u2019s this:<\/p>\n The amount that Sinema spent on private planes in 2023 alone is greater than the current annual salaries of all but just a few of her most senior staffers, according to the congressional database Legistorm. Just the cost of Sinema\u2019s private flight to the Grand Canyon is only a couple of grand short of covering the annual salary of her deputy press secretary or her military and veterans affairs representative.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n So\u2026not a great look! And speaking of not-great looks:<\/p>\n [L]ast year,\u00a0the Daily Beast reported\u00a0that Sinema\u2019s campaign and office paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in security expenses to one contractor, who has no other clients but a personal connection to the senator, an arrangement that raised red flags for ethics watchdogs.<\/p>\n Drawing on federal campaign finance filings,\u00a0the\u00a0New York Post<\/em>\u00a0reported<\/a>\u00a0that Sinema\u2019s campaign spent heavily on luxury items, including over $20,000 on wine-related expenses alone.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n Also, she dropped<\/a> $8,470 in campaign funds at the Boston Ritz-Carlton for a trip that just happened to take place around the time of the 2022 Boston Marathon, which the senator participated in<\/a>.<\/p>\n Commenting on Sinema\u2019s reported penchant for taking private flights on the taxpayers\u2019 dime, Jordan Libowitz,<\/strong> communications director for the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, told the Daily Beast that it \u201cplays into this larger thing we\u2019ve seen with her, where she tends to go right up to the line of what she\u2019s able to do with spending other people\u2019s money in the way she would best prefer.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
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