congratulations to Kyrsten Sinema, whose name I can spell, on being the first person to make money off MLMs https://t.co/3EbUv4m5RR
— counterfax?? (@counterfax) November 5, 2021
NEW — Kristen Sinema is raking in cash from MLMs—companies derided as pyramid schemes for incentivizing customers to become salespeople. They want her to kill her party’s labor bill. https://t.co/YvUh8hvGhk
via @Hailey_Fuchs
— Sam Stein (@samstein) November 5, 2021
… The political action committee associated with Alticor, the parent entity of the health, home and beauty company Amway, gave $2,500 to the Arizona Democrat in late June, as did the PAC for Isagenix, an Arizona-based business that sells nutrition, wellness and personal care products. Nu Skin Enterprises, another personal care and beauty company, gave $2,500 that month, as did USANA Health Sciences, which sells similar products. In April, Richard Raymond Rogers, the executive chair of Mary Kay, a Texas-based cosmetics company, gave $2,500 to Sinema. Herbalife, which also sells nutritional supplements, gave $2,500 in July. All are affiliated with the Direct Selling Association, a trade group that promotes multilevel marketing.
The donations don’t track usual political alliances. Alticor is owned by the DeVos family, one of the biggest funders of Republicans and conservative causes. And, on some occasions, they appear to be rare forays into national politics for the donor entities. Sinema is the only federal lawmaker that the Isagenix and Nu Skin PACs have given to this year. Utah-based USANA Health Sciences has only given to home state Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), home state Rep. Burgess Owens (R-Utah), a Republican PAC and Sinema…
Sinema does have a personal connection to the industry: Her own mother was a direct seller. But the bigger incentive for multilevel marketers to give to Sinema appears to be her position on labor organizing. The companies face an existential threat from the pro-union Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, which would make it more difficult to classify workers as independent contractors. According to one industry source, the bill has become the driving issue since Democrats took control of the White House and both chambers of Congress. And Sinema is one of — if not the only — Democratic allies in the Senate.
Unions have pushed for some of the Democrats’ priorities in the PRO Act to be inserted into the reconciliation bill, but for the most part, the marquee labor bill has languished before Congress since passing the House in March. Sinema’s fellow Senate moderate, Joe Manchin (D-W.V.), has already signed onto the legislation, leaving just three Senate Democrats who have yet to co-sponsor the bill — Sinema, Mark Warner of Virginia and Mark Kelly of Arizona. Warner signaled his support for the PRO Act at a rally in Virginia on Monday. And Kelly has said he supports the bill broadly speaking, though he wants to see some changes, including the provision related to independent contractors, according to a Democratic Hill aide…
The threat of a crackdown from the federal government, however, has become more acute in recent years. There’s been renewed criticism of the industry in pop culture, like a recent and heavily critical docu-series on the fashion company LuLaRoe. In 2016, Herbalife — one of the Sinema donors — agreed to a $200 million settlement with the Federal Trade Commission for deceiving customers about their ability to make a profit from their business. Biden’s Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Rohit Chopra advocated for “restitution and penalties against multilevel marketers” when he previously served as an FTC commissioner.
The industry knows that it can only survive through its relationships in Washington, D.C., Keep noted.
“An industry that is literally built on contract employees — which is what the MLM is — would never want to be considered to be, to entertain the notion of having those independent representatives as employees,” he said. Of the industry’s support for Sinema, he added: “I think that she’s demonstrated a flexibility that they think they can capitalize on.”
Amway’s been notorious for decades; the DeVos family are ‘Christian Reformed‘ believers, i.e., Calvinists. But a bunch of the newer MLM mega-businesses — including, I’d bet, the one Sinema’s mom is involved with — seem to be Mormon-based and Mormon-intensive. I’m getting the impression, more and more, that Sinema’s Mormon upbringing may have influenced her thinking just as much as my Irish-Catholic upbringing imbued me with a particular form of Jansenism. We may no longer be ‘of the Church’ in which we were raised, but it’s really really hard to avoid letting those early lessons control your thinking, even when you can see how much harm it’s doing…
sinema is absolutely the kind of person who believes themselves to be far too smart to get fooled by a con job, it's really just perfect
— GOLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachi) November 5, 2021
Craig
I don’t understand people’s confusion over Sinemas motivation. She’s just a corrupt politician looking for money. that’s it.
sstarr
Multi-Level Marketing companies, Vitamin companies and Nutritional Supplement companies spend hundreds of millions of dollars on Congress people in order to stay free from regulation.
HumboldtBlue
Unless you’re actively supporting the church, this is a bad comparison. Sinema — and those close to her — are getting paid and that’s what controls her thinking. Religious mores are stretchier than a well tossed pizza dough.
trollhattan
If it turns out Sinema is Mormon it will explain a hell of a lot. [MLM = Mormons losing money]
Mart
@sstarr: Pyramid Schemes are illegal in Canada. Liberal radio talking head said we should buy Sinema and Manchin’s vote with small donor money stuffing more money into their pockets than the big money folks. Joking, but makes one wonder if it would work.
trollhattan
Oh, this is just fucking great.
And that’s just science.
Yutsano
It’s not just Sinema. Both Mike Lee and Willard get copious amounts of money from the MLM industry. It’s a huge business in Utah.
Lacuna-Synecdoche
From now on I’m calling Manchin and Sinema: Coal Manson & Film Moi.
206inKY
Welp, we found the thing that finally makes me hate Sinema. This is such a profoundly exploitative industry. I highly recommend the podcast The Dream on the history of MLM schemes.
Lacuna-Synecdoche
Yutsano:
That’s kind of the point though, isn’t it?
I mean, at least there’s an argument that Republican Utah Senators Lee and R-Money are representing their constituents – wealthy Utah business interests.
But what’s the case for a Democratic Arizona Senator protecting Utah MLM’s?
Major Major Major Major
I forget who I saw say this, but I’ve been thinking about it lately. She used to be a “both parties are just corrupt corporate shills” type Green: perhaps it’s not a surprise that somebody who thinks politics is only that would behave this way.
Citizen Alan
@Major Major Major Major:
It’s what I’ve been saying all along. You can’t be a Green unless you hate Democrats worse than Republicans.
Anne Laurie
Her Wikipedia page says she grew up Mormon (LDS). It’s no secret in her district:
When I googled Sinema + Mormon, one of the first links was a Reddit thread by an ex-Mormon, wondering just how ‘ex’ Sinema actually was…
I’m the last person to pretend there’s anything wrong with being LDS, or otherwise religious! But growing up inside a particular religious philosophy tends to affect how you see the world, no matter how much your thinking evolves.
As I understand it, the LDS church emphasizes that ‘believers’ are a persecuted minority, whose best recourse is to associate only with others who share the same faith. People who do this will be rewarded, first in this life and later in the next. So, even if Sinema has cut herself off from the daily practice of the LDS, this impression that righteous people will always be oppressed by the worldly may, just possibly, have something to do with her conviction that every Democrat but her is just wrong.
eclare
@trollhattan: I wonder if that “church” has a 501(c)3 designation? If so, I hope someone at the IRS and the CA FTB gets on this fast.
opiejeanne
@HumboldtBlue:
I wanted to thank you for posting the Bach piece last night; it was very nice and the musicians were top notch. I was very impressed that they using period-correct instruments, and even period-correct bows, and I wanted to get my hands on one of those oboes to have a closer look at them.
HumboldtBlue
@opiejeanne:
Tonight is even spicier.
HumboldtBlue
And maybe she just gets paid. She was fine doing a Ted Lasso skit with Romney.
You can go to the altar all day, she’s getting paid.
NotMax
@Anne Laurie
Blight force prophecy?
JWR
I read the Politico story last night and so Googled “congressional MLM caucus” to see if Sinema had anything to do with them, and this 3 year old Reddit thread identifies Sinema as a member of the Direct Selling Association, (the MLM industry’s congressional caucus), but on this DSA site, (updated February 19, 2021), she’s nowhere to be found. So she was a member of the DSA until she wasn’t. Probably no matter. She’s raking in their moolah and looking after their interests.
Ten Bears
I’ve been fifty-five years away from The Church ~ in my case the Holy Rolling Four Square Pentecostal Baptist Church of Jesus Christ Alive! in Pearblossom California* ~ and still routinely find myself asking “where did that canard came from and how it ended up in the here and now.” That’s what so insidious about it, can’t escape it, it’s the very language we use. Yeah, I make jokes about rolling on the floor babbling incoherently ~ been there, done that, all I got was a psychosis.
I’ve looked for a long time to find a way to talk about religion in a language not rooted in religion.
*And if you’re downright disgusted and just don’t give a damn, get a girl … with far-away eyes …
Baud
Ok, I dislike Sinema too but that excerpt had no information about what Sinema is doing and the contribution amounts are tiny. And given that Warner and Kelly may oppose the bill and every Republican will oppose the bill, this just reads like a hit Politico piece on a favorite target of scorn. I didn’t click for obvious reasons, so apologies if there’s actual information in the article.
Gvg
@Baud: I agree. Those amounts are tiny. It doesn’t seem like a big enough amount to make her loyal to them.
I dislike her so at first was inclined to believe the article, but now I am not so sure. Wait and see. Also if anyone is her constituent, perhaps start lobbying her on the whole package, labor rights being good and MLM being bad. It might take time to bring her around.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Hating on SInema and Manchin is a popular genre of posts on leftie and liberal online spaces these days.
Politico is catering to that demand.
Johannes
@Mart: Wouldn’t the just take the small donor money *and* the sweet, sweet MLM dollars too?
Baud
@Gvg:
@schrodingers_cat:
Saying Sinema will hurt us on this is a decent prediction. I just hate being manipulated by a media that wants to play to our predispositions for clicks that have no substance. That how Fox News viewers behave.
Chris Johnson
…a fellow Mormon? Funny coincidence there.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Not just Fox News as we are finding out.
Kay
Sinema’s donors are the same people who are donating to Republicans to take back the senate:
There’s no way to deny it anymore- the Republican Party is propping up this Democratic Senator. They’re her backers.
If she loses Emily’s List she won’t have any Democratic donors at all.
Kay
It’s such a bad deal for Democrats. Sinema gets $2900 from the same people who donate half a million to beat other Democrats. I say “other Democrats” but they’ll happily try tp replace her with a Republican, just as soon as she’s not longer useful to them.
She’s a net loss.
Another Scott
@Baud: +1
Cheers,
Scott.
Morzer
Shamway Sinema the Pyramid Princess
mvr
I had/have a friend who went in for Amway several decades ago. Went to a community college class on “entrepreneurship” and got hooked in by his instructor. It struck me as a cult. Also did a number on the friendship since I did not like it when my friends try to sell me stuff I don’t need in order to make money. Just could not listen to me anymore.
The dormancy of the friendship is probably also somewhat my fault for not following up after several years to see if the tide had waned. Sometimes I’m lazy when I’m uncomfortable.
Ella in New Mexico
@Lacuna-Synecdoche:
There are quite a few Mormon’s in Arizona as well so it totally makes sense.