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Sen. Sinema uses campaign cash to travel from here to hypocrisy | Opinion

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Sen. Sinema uses campaign cash to travel from here to hypocrisy | Opinion

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema was sincere when she told her colleagues to ‘temper the excesses of greed.’ But her words ring hollow.

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Sen. Kyrsten Sinema was exiled from the Democratic Party for doing what she believed to be the right thing.

One of her signature pieces of legislation, a solid, bipartisan border security bill that was supported by the Border Patrol, was killed by Donald Trump to keep his presidential campaign alive.

She was isolated, rejected, shunned. Reelection was not possible.

But there was money in her campaign coffers and lots of cool places in the world to visit.

So, she did. Sinema spent much of her final go-round in the U.S. Senate traveling all the way from honesty and integrity to hypocrisy.

Sinema used campaign cash to travel the world

The persnickety folks at the nonprofit Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington say Sinema has been breaking election rules that prohibit candidates from using campaign funds for strictly personal purposes.

CREW president Noah Bookbinder said in a written statement, “The rule of thumb is that any dollar your campaign spends has to be for the campaign — it can’t just be for your own personal benefit. It’s hard to see how any of this spending was for the benefit of the campaign.”

This comes after a news report in The Arizona Republic a few months back about how Sinema, a self-declared lame duck, billed her campaign upwards of $200,000 in travel expenses during visits to France, Japan, the U.K. and other international destinations.

It’s the kind of stuff a person in Sinema’s position does because she can. Not because she should.

The message is the same as on her naughty ring

Remember that photo of Sinema from a few years back with the naughty ring on her finger? The one with the f-word suggestion on it?

Yeah, that seems to be the message.

It’s kind of a bummer given the impassioned farewell address Sinema gave asking her colleagues to honor the principles of the Founding Fathers and protect the “guardrails” of democracy.

I believe she was sincere.

Opinion: Sinema leaves Senate as a shadow of herself

In spite of numerous legislative wins, crafted with bipartisan support, it’s easy to understand Sinema having a sense of bitterness — even betrayal — after her bipartisan border security bill was killed by members of Congress under the orders of Donald Trump.

Trump bragged about killing it.

The bill would have gone a long way toward combating the flow of illegal drugs, solving the asylum problem and bolstering the Border Patrol by way of more officers and enhanced security.

Then she told Congress to stop ‘excesses of greed’

But any progress on border security would have damaged Trump’s fearmongering campaign.

So, it was killed.

In her farewell speech, Sinema spoke of the need to protect “guardrails” like the filibuster and the dangers of tossing them aside.

She said in part, “Many now blame these guardrails for blocking critical progress, instead of recognizing that it is us, our actions, our words, our incivility and, ultimately, our unwillingness to compromise that prevent reasonable solutions from advancing.”

She added, “They exist for a reason: to cultivate relationships so we can move history forward, to temper the excesses of greed and to curb the hunger for power. … Our democracy ensures that no one person, no one party has too much control. The checks and balances built into our government protect us all.”

She was right.

Unfortunately, it’s tough to give much credence to what she said, particularly her exhortation “to temper the excesses of greed and to curb the hunger for power,” when she’s using campaign money and her position in the Senate to Marco Polo her way around the world.

Reach Montini at ed.montini@arizonarepublic.com.

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