Kyrsten Sinema’s ‘Side Hustle’
The Arizona Senator runs an online thrift store in her spare time.
Memeorandum points me to an odd story at Slate by a Christina Cauterucci: “I Think I Found Kyrsten Sinema’s Side Hustle.”
It is 11 a.m. on a Tuesday, and I am exchanging Facebook messages with Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema about a lightly used pair of Badgley Mischka heels.
At least, I think it’s Kyrsten Sinema. It’s her name on the Facebook Marketplace listing, and it’s her in the profile photo, grinning at the finish line of a running race. The seller bio says she lives in Phoenix, and our one mutual Facebook friend is a former Democratic National Committee staffer. The shoes—4.5-inch stilettos adorned with rhinestone-studded flower appliqués—look as if they would fit pretty well in Sinema’s wardrobe.
But would a sitting senator respond within seconds on a weekday morning to a message about her used heels? Would it be worth her time to photograph a pair of old shoes, write a sales listing, field inquiries from potential buyers, and arrange pickup logistics—all for just $65?
“They’re beautiful shoes,” the user DMs me as I Venmo the money. “Enjoy them!”
This is far from the only listing of secondhand clothes this user, “Kyrsten Sinema,” has posted.
The user is currently hawking—among other things—a $215 cycling ensemble, a $25 trucker hat, and a $150 stainless steel watch with a silicone strap. Within the past six weeks, she has offloaded a $150 fitness tracker ring, an $80 cycling jersey, and a $500 bicycle travel case. Over the past two years, and across at least five Facebook groups for athletes, she has listed several dozen personal items, including a $100 pair of sunglasses (“Just too big for my tiny head!!”), two $50 puffer jackets, three $75 pairs of high-heeled boots, a $75 cycling bib, a $60 Lululemon raincoat, several mesh tanks at $55 a pop ($20 off the current retail price), and multiple bikinis, priced between $60 and $70, that ranged from “never worn” to “in great condition.”
Arizona Capitol Times editor Jim Small, who has been Facebook friends with the Senator going back to the days when he was a reporter and she was in the Arizona House of Representatives, confirms that “Yes, that really is Kyrsten Sinema selling designer clothes and bike gear on Facebook.”
Now, as Cauterucci notes, there’s likely nothing all that problematic here. Sinema almost certainly isn’t breaking any rules.
Nurturing a side hustle in clothing resale is uncommon among federal elected officials (as far as we know), but it is not prohibited by the relevant portions of the Senate ethics guidelines. There is nothing in the rulebook that would bar a senator from hawking vintage T-shirts on Depop or opening an Etsy store to unload old neckties. Senators must report any outside income they earn, and they cannot make more than a certain amount each year. But selling used items at a loss isn’t income. And in the current congressional year, the limit is $29,895, a threshold that Facebook Sinema’s gross sales figures—at least those that are visible on Facebook—don’t come close to meeting. That would likely be true even if we added the $22,964.93 that Sen. Sinema included on a 2021 financial disclosure form for the salary that she makes as an instructor at Arizona State University.
That’s not to say that Facebook Sinema isn’t making good money from her resale business. Some big-ticket items have sold on Facebook Marketplace, including a $600 treadmill marked down from $1,000 and a $3,500 road-bike frame.
But Facebook Sinema also trades in inexpensive stuff, the kind of random items that might sit in another triathlete’s basement for years because it’s not worth the time it would take to get rid of them. She is selling a water bottle—“used once (at the 2022 Boston Marathon!)”—for $20, about half the retail price. Facebook Sinema also once listed a used neon-yellow “Do Epic Shit” hat for $30, plus $7 for shipping. A brand new “Do Epic Shit” hat from Betty Designs currently costs $29.99.
While there might be some questions about a Senator leveraging a business selling tchotchkes as a means of laundering what are effectively bribes, that’s clearly not what’s going on here. She’s selling used items for, in most cases, less—usually considerably less—than the cost new. This is ethically no different from her holding a garage sale.
There are amusing parallels with the much-ridiculed Trump NFT grift that we also learned about yesterday. But, in addition to Sinema decidedly not going out of her way to draw attention to it, she’s actually giving people something of value for their money.
Still . . . it’s . . . odd.
Only an extraordinarily frugal consumer would spend any fraction of her day selling and shipping a $20 water bottle if she earned about $200,000 a year, as Sen. Sinema does. Her wares for sale also indicate an orientation toward pragmatism over sentimentality: Facebook Sinema would rather have $50 than the shirt she was wearing when she qualified for the Boston Marathon. The fact that some items have been listed for months without a price reduction suggests that Facebook Sinema is dogged, willing to wait for what she believes she deserves. And also that she does not lack storage space.
Beyond that, she apparently buys a lot of fairly expensive items to wear only once or twice. That’s not terribly unusual for celebrity women, I guess, but it seems weird to me. I sort of get why she’d only want to wear a particular dress or even pair of distinctive heels just once and then sell them off; she’s photographed constantly and people would notice the duplication. And it’s not like a male Senator, who can get by wearing the same three dark suits in constant rotation. But why use a water bottle once and then sell it? Ditto workout gear?
Beyond that, even aside from the influence-peddling angle, she could certainly command more money for these items by capitalizing on her celebrity. That’s she’s doing it via her personal Facebook page is . . . quirky?
Should be filed under “The News of the Weird.”
Sounds a bit like a budding narcissist.
High profile women are, rather insanely, judged on their clothing. I guess if you’re going to make it your “brand” to wear highly recognizable expensive designer clothing, it makes more sense to sell it than donate it to charity.
I would think that using an upscale consignment boutique would be more appropriate for a sitting US Senator, but she clearly gives zero f*&ks about what is appropriate.
Even more appropriate would be to dress like a grownup and buy nice, well-tailored suits that are boring but serviceable so that you can wear them more than once or twice, and it’s certainly better for the planet. I think she’s trashing whatever “green” credentials she might have had by doing this.
She’s exceedingly weird.
@Jen:
Sinema, Musk, Trump, they all have me contemplating when does “unusual” pass into “eccentric” and when does that pass into “unstable”?
Maybe she just doesn’t like them after trying them once. I have a couple of water bottles that I hate. One leaks down my chin whenever I drink out of it. I can’t figure out why it is doing it. I haven’t tried to sell it, because I am lazy.
I can think of tons of reasons that Sinema is weird and annoying, but this is not one of them.
As Jen noted, when it comes to selling high-end clothing she should be shilling her wares on a site like The RealReal, or donating it or selling the clothing to one of those type of stores that offers up vintage or couture type clothing and accessories at a price that is sometimes affordable by women (and men) who are not in the same earnings bracket as Sinema is but still would like to occasionally wear a real nice quality designer outfit for a (usually indoors) company outing, etc.
I also chide her a bit for not donating to a thrift store because Thrift stores sometime have volunteers/employees who recognize what was donated and the value so they price it a bit higher and keep the clothing/accessories behind the counter instead of the clothing racks that usually take up most of the floor space in a Thrift store. So Thrift store shoppers pay a bit more than usual for clothing that will make them feel a bit special when they wear it, but clothing they normally could not afford in a million years.
Or she could sell it on her own and donate the proceeds to charity. I kind-of agree with BugManDan that perhaps this does not make her technically annoying or weird, but it is further proof that for Sinema it is all about her. If she sells sells something she wants the money to flow into her hands, it is just more of the look at me syndrome that has taken over her soul.
I would be happy to take back my words(and eat some crow) if it turns out that for slightly quirky reason she prefers to sell her used goods her own way, but does contribute the money she makes to charity or those in need. Maybe a follow-up story will lay all of this bare and I will need to consider what spices and hot sauce I should use to make the crow I eat a bit more easy to chow down on.
@inhumans99: I don’t even see this as one of her many “look at me” moments. She didn’t advertise that she was doing it. Maybe she just enjoys it.
@BugManDan: I think was is odd to me is that selling on Facebook is a HUGE time suck. My husband has tried a few times to sell things via FB and each time, it’s a deluge of inquiries saying “let me know when you drop the price” or “I’ll give you [half the requested amount]”–and those are the ones you can easily ignore. Far more taxing are the people who seem legitimately interested who ask a zillion questions.
On top of the look of this, I simply don’t understand how a sitting US Senator has the TIME. When I worked with Kit Bond’s people, he was scheduled to the minute, whether he was in DC or home. I stand by my “it’s weird” comment.
@Jen:
She refuses to meet with her constituents and routinely leaves colleagues in the dark. Maybe that’s why she has the time.
@Jen: I think that take is the story, especially for her states voters, not that she is strange for selling on FB. I have a friend that buys crap at garage sales, etc just to sell it online. It is her hobby and making a couple of bucks makes her happy. I just assume that is Sinema deal.
This is interesting but feels like none of my business. Does she have any kids? I don’t see any listed on Wikipedia and that immediately frees up at least 10% of her time. If she feels like she has to pinch every penny and save every dollar even after making $200k/year, well that’s probably the way she was raised. I know people like that. I know millionaires who complain about the price of socks.
In any case, I’m not going to fuss over her particular choices. It’s probably better than leaving shit piled up in the basement or garage, and probably worse than giving it to charity, but :shrug: maybe she already donates time and energy there.
I’d rather complain about her voting record and holding key legislation hostage.
@Franklin: Yeah, I’d bet there’s no way she’s only making $200,000/year with all that legislative hostage-taking she’s been doing.
But maybe I’m being too cynical.
Yeah, I have no problem with this. In fact, I think it is a bit endearing. What is weird is that she is so low-key about it. This is probably the most benign, anodyne thing about her.
She seems to me (a total non-mental health professional who took a grand total of three semesters of psychology classes many decades ago) to be a narcissist.
Usually it is “Pay attention to me!”
I have actually come around to the point folks have made that at the end of the day, it is no big deal that she sells stuff on eBay or Facebook and as de stijl just noted, it is maybe even a bit endearing.
What she is doing sure beats shilling badly designed NFTs to a bunch of poor and ignorant suckers.
@inhumans99:
Whereas I have come around to the “Wait, you think being a US Senator isn’t a full-time job!?” point of view.