Kyrsten Sinema

Kyrsten Sinema

Kyrsten Lea Sinema is an American politician serving as the senior United States Senator for Arizona since January 2019. She is the first openly bisexual and the second openly LGBT woman to be elected to the House of Representatives and to the Senate in 2013 and 2019, respectively. She won the 2018 Senate election to replace the retiring Jeff Flake, defeating Republican nominee Martha McSally.

About Kyrsten Sinema in brief

Summary Kyrsten SinemaKyrsten Lea Sinema is an American politician serving as the senior United States Senator for Arizona since January 2019. She is the first openly bisexual and the second openly LGBT woman to be elected to the House of Representatives and to the Senate in 2013 and 2019, respectively. She won the 2018 Senate election to replace the retiring Jeff Flake, defeating Republican nominee Martha McSally. Her great-great-grandfather Lieuwe Jacobs Sinnema emigrated at a young age with his father Jacob Jans Sinnema to the United States in 1867 from the village of Bitgum, in the Dutch province of Friesland. Her parents divorced when she was a child and her mother, who had custody of the children, remarried. She has said that for two years they had no toilet or electricity while living in a remodeled gas station with her mother and stepfather. Her father was an attorney. She was raised as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She 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 in 1995 at age 18. In 2004 she earned a J. D. degree from Arizona State University College of Law. In 2008 she completed the John F. Kennedy School of Government’s program for senior executives in local government and state government. She also became an adjunct professor at Arizona State School of Social Work and an adjunct Law Professor at Phoenix Summit Law School, formerly known as Phoenix School of Law School.

She left the Church in 1995 and worked as a social worker from 1995 to 2002 in the Phoenix area’s Washington Elementary School District. In 1999 she became a criminal defense lawyer and taught at Harvard University’s John Fettett School of government. In 2003 she also became a teaching adjunct professor in Arizona’s John David Fohn School of State Government. In 2005 she became an assistant professor of social-writing and grant-writing classes at Arizona University of State Work. She served three terms as a state representative for Arizona’s 15th legislative district from 2005 to 2011, and one term as the state senator from 2011 to 2012. She rose to prominence for her LGBT rights and anti-war advocacy. She joined the Arizona Democratic Party in 2004 and was elected to a seat in the U.S. House of Representative in 2012. Since her election, she has joined the New Democrat Coalition, the Blue Dog Coalition and the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, amassing a moderate voting record. She voted with President Donald Trump 25. 6% of the time, the second most for a Democratic senator. In the 115th Congress, SinemA voted with Trump 62. 6%. She is considered a moderate or conservative Democrat and a proponent of bipartisanship. She is of Frisian descent. Her grandfather relocated to Phoenix, Arizona, where her father was born in 1949, and she has two siblings, an older brother and younger sister.