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Kyrsten Sinema

United State Senate

Tucson, Arizona, United States

In the Arizona where Kyrsten Sinema grew up, strong schools and tight-knit communities meant opportunity for future generations. The hard-working middle class could get ahead, and government was there to help ensure that there was opportunity for all who were willing to work hard and play by the rules.

Sinema knows firsthand the struggles families face. As someone whose family at times faced serious poverty growing up, she knows what it means to struggle just to meet the most basic needs. For three years, her family lived in an old gas station – a rectangle building with no electricity or running water.

Luckily, her hard work in school paid off with a full-ride scholarship to college. She also saved money by earning over 60 college course credits at community college while attending high school.

After college, Sinema became a social worker helping struggling families. She soon realized that the problems they came to her with – poverty, homelessness, job loss, abuse – were common to so many families, and that solving these problems meant thinking bigger than one family at a time. It required fighting for real change to rebuild an America that works for ALL Americans.

So Sinema went back to school and started working at the grassroots level to help people access our leaders and talk about their needs. She helped them argue for better schools and fought to ensure that the services we fund were actually helping the people who need and deserve them. Her feeling was that if she could help these struggling people change the circumstances in which they live, instead of just giving them a food box and trying to help them find a place to sleep for a night, that she had done her job.

Because she believes that everyone should get the same shot and that the system should not favor those at the very top, she ran for the legislature and won.

There she worked to pass tough immigration laws, securing funding for our vets, working to provide business incentives for job creation and fighting back against attempts to gut basic health care for kids, cuts to services for the elderly and dramatic drops to school funding.

Sinema brings passion and knowledge to the causes she fights for – and a unique ability to win. In 2011, Kyrsten was lauded by the Arizona Republic for her “remarkable” ability to “partner with Republicans in both the House and Senate” to pass legislation while remaining “a staunch defender of key Democratic priorities.”

Sinema is committed to helping our country return to the values that make America great—the same values that have guided her life so far: hard work, access to public education, fairness and opportunity. Sinema takes her passion and talent into the 115th Congress, serving Arizona's Ninth Congressional District. She has been to appointed to the House Committee on Financial Services.

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Sinema for Arizona today announced the launch of Students for Sinema, a coalition of Arizona students standing with Kyrsten in her campaign for the U.S. Senate. Kyrsten knows the power of education from her own life, and as a professor at ASU, Kyrsten hears from her students about rising costs of education and the challenges they face today. That's why Kyrsten is fighting to make college and skills training more affordable, bring down the cost of student loans, and make quality education accessible for every Arizonan. Kyrsten issued the following statement: “I know from my own life that education is the key to opportunity. Every Arizona kid should have the same access to a good education that I did. I hear from my students about their struggles with student loan debt. These issues are personal for me, and I know that we can solve our challenges if we work together on finding solutions. I'm proud Arizona students are joining our campaign as we work to make education more affordable and accessible for all Arizonans who want to pursue their dreams.” Kyrsten's work to make sure all Arizonans have a quality education includes: Partnering with Senator McCain to protect $3.5 billion in school funding for Arizona; Voting to expand the Pell Grant program; Addressing skyrocketing student loan costs as one of the first bills Kyrsten introduced in Congress; Working across the aisle to invest in community colleges and support career and technical education; Fighting to ensure students have more time to learn and educators spend less time teaching to the test; Leading a bipartisan effort to better prepare Arizona teachers for demanding, high-needs classrooms; and Securing in-state tuition for veterans at Arizona colleges and universities. Hear from the co-chairs of Students for Sinema: “Kyrsten is the Senator we need, and not just because she's a proud Sun Devil. Kyrsten will fight for us and our future, while Congresswoman McSally is more concerned with saying whatever she has to just to get elected. Young people need to get involved and do everything we can to elect Kyrsten to the U.S. Senate because there is so much at stake in this election. I'm excited to make sure students at ASU and across Arizona know how hard Kyrsten Sinema fights for Arizonans.” — Jesse Avalos, Central Arizona Co-Chair & ASU Student “Students in our state need to get engaged in this election because our future depends on it. Kyrsten Sinema knows what it's like to work hard to achieve your dreams and struggle with student loans along the way because she has lived it herself. She's gone through real struggles, and now she's working to improve the system for all Arizonans. McSally, on the other hand, has proven she will say or do anything to get another job in Washington. That's not the leader we need. That's why—despite the fact that she's a Sun Devil—U of A students are proud to stand with Kyrsten in this critical election.” — Carlos Martinez, Southern Arizona Co-Chair & U of A Student

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