For years, Kyrsten Sinema used Arizona's clean elections system to get herself entrenched in the Arizona State House. After holding office for years, she decided to “moderate” herself (aka “sell out”) to prepare for her run to Congress.
How? She partnered with Clean Elections opponents like GOP Senate Majority Leader Andy Biggs, who sought a complete repeal of Clean Elections, to undermine Arizona’s public financing system.
Right-wing Biggs and Sinema teamed up to introduce to shorten the period that candidates could take to raise “clean” dollars, which ultimately makes it more difficult for candidates to use the public financing system. The Biggs-Sinema bill was opposed by Public Campaign.
Supporters of the Biggs-Sinema bill decried the “misuse of public money” – validating right-wing objections to the bill and giving momentum to the Goldwater Institute’s campaign to terminate Clean Elections.
Sinema has been walking away from Clean Elections for some time, so its no surprise that she would work with Biggs to help him begin his fight against it. Sinema once said, “I am going to use Clean Elections until I run for an office that doesn't have the system.”
But in her next run for AZ state office- when clean election funding was available- she broke her promise and abandoned Clean Elections. She has never looked back.