New reports indicate that Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona has spent more than $200,000 in taxpayer money on private air travel since 2020.
In January, the Daily Beast reported that Sinema spent $116,000 in 2023 on private plane costs that were charged to her taxpayer-funded Senate office. Since 2020, taxpayers have reportedly been billed about $210,000 for Sinema’s air travel.
Sinema, who was elected in 2018 as a Democrat and has since switched to an independent, did not hold any in-person town halls that were publicly accessible while she was racking up those expenses, according to Fox News.
According to Fox, Sinema’s only in-person town hall was in 2022, when she visited Honeywell. That event was only open to employees.
Fox reported that in 2017, Sinema supported the No Ongoing Perks Enrichment Act, which sought to “prohibit the use of funds provided for the official travel expenses of Members of Congress and other officers and employees of the legislative branch for first-class airline accommodations.”
💰 No raise for Congress
💵 No budget no pay
✈️ No government $ for first class air travelWe introduced the NOPE Act with @TomOHalleran to hold Congress accountable. RT if you agree. pic.twitter.com/JPdrWhDnsI
— Kyrsten Sinema (@kyrstensinema) December 10, 2017
Hannah Hurley, a Sinema representative, said the efficiency of air travel leads Sinema to fly, according to the Arizona Republic.
Is Sinema wasting taxpayer money?
“Arizonans know it can take hours to get from Prescott to Yuma. Senator Sinema maximizes her time in Arizona to connect with as many constituents in every corner of the state as possible,” Hurley said in a statement.
According to the Daily Beast, Arizona’s other U.S. senator, Democrat Mark Kelly, has had no private plane costs shouldered by taxpayers.
Jordan Libowitz, of the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, criticized Sinema’s flights.
“This is one of those things that does raise the question of, is this the best way to manage the budget? … Could she be doing more for the state otherwise?” he said.
Libowitz said Sinema’s private flights “[play] into this larger thing we’ve seen with her, where she tends to go right up to the line of what she’s able to do with spending other people’s money in the way she would best prefer.”
“She’s seemed pretty good at finding the ways to do it that people are going to see and are not going to like but, generally, don’t rise to the level of being an actual legal problem,” he said.
Libowitz said the contrast between Kelly and Sinema is telling.
“The dichotomy … shows you what the normal thing is, which is, you get in the car and you drive, especially in a state that has a highway system,” he said.
Sinema has not yet said if she is seeking re-election in November.
Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego and Republican Kari Lake are both vying for her seat. Sinema finished behind her challengers in a three-way poll in January.
