Rebekah L. Sanders

The Republic | azcentral.com

U.S. Rep. Kyrsten Sinema leaned forward to listen to her gray-haired constituent at the packed Chandler meet-and-greet. Retired social worker Ruth Wootten couldn’t believe Congress was ignoring a badly needed update to free school-lunch programs for poor kids.

Sinema, among red-state Arizona's most formidable Democrats, agreed that lawmakers needed to renew the program. And then she got personal.

“I was one of the kids who benefited from that program because we were very poor,” Sinema, a social worker herself before grad school and politics, told Wootten. “I would spend my summers at elementary schools eating free breakfast and free lunch.”

She didn’t add the usual coda: that from ages 8 to 11 her family lived in an abandoned gas station in Florida.

“I was homeless when I was a kid,” she said on another day at a Phoenix job fair. “But I got my shot at college, I got a job, and I stand before you today.”

The 39-year-old congresswoman’s journey from sleeping in a vacant service station to holding a Ph.D., law license and office on Capitol Hill has become a staple of Sinema’s biography.

And she’s telling it to anyone who will listen as she works to fortify her hold on a key swing House district that could pave her way to the Senate.

“Cinematic,” the women’s magazine Marie Claire declared of the bootstrapping narrative that Sinema has told to brainy TED talkers, Ironman athletes and commuters tuned to National Public Radio.

“She lived in an old, worn-out gas station for a number of years with no running water and no other things,” Roc Arnett, then-president of the influential East Valley Partnership, wowed a crowd of business executives waiting to hear Sinema. “It has helped craft her into the person she is today.”

But while Sinema has accepted praise from many corners, and leveraged the political capital it brings, she has been reluctant to go beyond the basic details even as questions about the story's authenticity have persisted.

Political opponents have attempted to debunk it. A Washington Post profile questioned her skeptically but came to no conclusion. Sinema had not provided corroboration, including when asked by The Republic.

And always there loomed the question: If a gas station did shelter her family, could it be found in Florida’s backcountry more than three decades after shutting down?

Sinema was born in 1976 to a middle-class family in Tucson.

Her father, Dan Sinema Sr., practiced law while mother Marilyn cared for the three kids.

They lived in a five-bedroom ranch house at the foot of the Santa Catalina Mountains, where green paloverde trees and pink bougainvillea bushes today brighten the desert yard.

But before Sinema turned 5, the family’s fortunes slipped.

In a recent interview, she said she realized it when their car was repossessed.

“We had an orange El Camino,” Sinema said with a comedic pause, “which is a hideous car” — repeating a line that gets big laughs from audiences.

Sinema typically says the problems started when her father lost his job amid the 1980s recession. Records show he was also fighting complaints from legal clients, censure by the State Bar of Arizona, a real-estate deal gone bad and IRS debts. The family’s house would briefly go into foreclosure.

By 1983, Sinema’s parents had divorced. Within a few years, her father would file for bankruptcy protection and her mother, a child of poverty, would return to pennilessness.

As the family’s situation worsened, it only seemed to stiffen Sinema’s resolve, said Sandra Wiley, her aunt and a longtime confidante.

“Back when they were living in some pretty severe situations ... I was quite concerned,” Wiley said. “Later on ... I thought, ‘Man, this girl can do anything. This girl is a survivor. She’s going to be OK.’ ”

Shortly after the divorce, Marilyn moved the children to Florida. It was the summer before Sinema entered third grade, and Marilyn had remarried, to Andy Howard, a teacher at the Tucson elementary school Sinema attended.

Dan Sr. had also wed, gaining three stepchildren and, later, another child.

Marilyn and Andy drove cross-country with the kids in a yellow moving van, Sinema remembers. Her mother’s decision to relocate would exacerbate an already contentious custody and child-support battle with Dan Sr.

The family landed in DeFuniak Springs, sandwiched between Alabama and the Gulf of Mexico, where Sinema’s stepfather had grown up.

Walton County, with fewer than 25,000 residents at the time, was as rural as “country cornbread,” one resident recalled.

Vacation homes, restaurants and hotels were scattered along the southern coast. Plots of watermelon, squash and peanuts were common in the lush northern farmland, where Sinema’s family settled.

But there was not enough employment to go around. Residents earned so little that the school district received extra funding from the federal government.

“You either worked at the chicken plant or you worked for the county, the school system or the city,” said Delrek Barge, a childhood friend. “My dad worked for Eglin Air Force Base about an hour away (and) used to grow crops. ... Then you had the people who owned small businesses within the town. That was pretty much it.”

It was during this time that Sinema recounts living in the gas station. Some government definitions of homelessness include insecure housing such as hotels, shelters, overly crowded apartments or, in this case, a run-down store.

For a few months, Marilyn taught aerobics. It was a year before Andy landed a part-time gig at the local junior college.

Meanwhile, Dan Sr. had only “sporadic employment” in Tucson, according to family court filings.

A year and a half after arriving in Florida, the Howards, who are Mormon, had exhausted their credit and were relying on the church food pantry.

“We are unable to provide adequately for the children and are presently receiving welfare from the church through the Bishop’s storehouse,” Howard wrote the judge. “The Howard’s (sic) have had to utilize every penny Mr. Sinema has sent to continue living and at that less than adequate.”

Marilyn later sent the court a list of her monthly finances. She had $13.69 in the bank.

The daughter who now revels in her fashion-plate persona while empathizing with Arizona State University students over college debt, recalled the family receiving the pantry food in exchange for picking fruit and working at a cannery.Sinema said in the interview that she was surprised her mom had that much.

“The Deseret honey was a huge treat in our family,” she said, referring to the brand name used by the welfare system of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Sinema no longer ascribes to a religion. She was sworn into Congress on a copy of the Constitution.

But she says she respects different faiths and credits the Mormon Church’s charity with shaping her positions on aid to the poor.

“You think about the traditional conservative narrative, ‘Pull yourself up by your bootstraps’ and the ... liberal message, ‘Help those in need and have a safety net.’ But the reality is it’s a combination of those two,” she told The Arizona Republic. “That’s what shaped my life — working hard and getting the help that I needed.”

Sinema’s appeal to conservative principles shows how she has moderated since her early days as a Green Party activist, anti-war protester, and liberal state lawmaker.

Since clinching a toss-up seat in Congress in 2012, Sinema has crossed the aisle repeatedly, including on safety-net issues, often citing her childhood as an explanation.

“She doesn’t just know it from the textbook. She knows it from personal experience,” said Wiley, her aunt, who remembers sending care packages of toothpaste and soap to the children even when she was struggling herself to get by.

Sinema stood with Democrats to oppose billions in cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

“When my parents got divorced, my mom relied on food stamps to feed us. Later, when my stepfather was out of work and my family was homeless, food stamps once again helped my family survive,” Sinema said at the time.

But she later compromised, voting with most Republicans — and about half of Democrats — for $80 million in cuts that spared Arizona but hurt other states.

Sinema sided with Republicans to block required labeling of genetically modified foods, angering eco-activists on the left. She put a safety-net twist on an argument made by corporate food giants.

“I know the serious challenges created by food insecurity,” she said in a statement. “... Keeping food prices in check is critical to putting meals on the table.”

When it comes to housing, Sinema has opposed Republican attempts to slash homelessness assistance to “our most vulnerable populations.”

But Sinema backed a conservative plan to loosen regulations on mobile-home loans that consumer advocates warned would invite predatory lending to the poor.

Sinema’s family situation began to improve in 1987, nearly three years after they moved to Florida.

Andy had secured a full-time job with the K-12 school district, while Marilyn had joined the county clerk of courts. She later would take a position at the children’s middle school.

The couple also had found a modest farmhouse for sale on a spacious wooded property. They could rent its field for grazing cattle, records show.

To move in, the family received help from the church once more. The local Mormon bishop, Riker Van Arsdall, extended Andy and Marilyn a nearly $100,000 mortgage.

The late bishop was fond of the Howards and felt called to extend credit to the needy, his son Scott Van Arsdall recalled.

“He knew what some of the hard times were like first-hand. He had worked his way up,” said Van Arsdall, 48, now a Florida restaurant manager. “With the Howards, he had a good feeling about them.”

The family would visit his father’s farm to help in the fields or swim in the pool, Van Arsdall said, and they were devoted to the church.

Despite being a “long-haired rock-and-roll hippie” who wasn’t a believer, Van Arsdall said he was treated no differently by the Howards.

“There’s a lot of people I’ve met through churches and other ways, they’re nice on the surface. And the Howards just seemed really genuine,” said Van Arsdall, recalling that they doted on the children.

Sinema’s campaign ads have featured her brother, stepbrother and grandmother. But she says she no longer remains close to her parents, and spends holidays traveling.

No members of her immediate family agreed to be interviewed for this story.

Whatever the current family dynamics, the congresswoman’s success would have made the bishop proud, Van Arsdall said. “I like to think Dad might be smiling about it now.”

Matthew Posey, another acquaintance, put it succinctly: “Smart, beautiful and calculated: Not much has changed.”“Kyrsten being so outgoing and that smile and the way she carried herself: It’s no surprise she’s in the role she is now,” said Josh Kennedy, 39, who attended Walton Senior High with her.Sinema’s political ascent was practically foretold, former classmates say. From her earliest days in school, she was whip smart, wielding a ferocious drive and a magnetic personality.

Barge, the childhood friend, recalled being struck by Sinema’s moxy despite her small frame.

“I remember how much shorter she was than me, and I remember she would always look you right in the eye,” said Barge, a Florida pharmaceuticals salesman.

Sinema’s extracurricular pursuits tended toward the athletic and the nerdy: track, softball and the color guard plus a community service group, math team and the French Club.

She dotted the "i" in her name with a star.

The overachiever’s ambitions accelerated as she entered sophomore year. At 14, she began taking classes at Okaloosa-Walton Junior College.

Convincing administrators to approve the dual-enrollment program wasn’t easy.

“They told me that I couldn’t do it. And I was like, ‘Oh no, we’re going to do it.’ Because I knew that college led to a job and independence,” Sinema told The Republic.

Guidance counselor Cindy Martin Jeselnik helped Sinema make her case.

“Kyrsten ... was able to open the door for herself, as well as many other students coming after her,” said Jeselnik, now retired at 61. “She was just a little adult in a teenager’s clothing.”

Barge, her childhood friend, had never heard of a kid so young taking college courses. “That was one of the things that made her seem head and shoulders above everybody else,” he said.

By 16, Sinema had earned enough credits to finish high school a year early, presenting school administrators with another dilemma. She was tied for top grades with another girl, but school regulations didn’t allow early graduates to claim the honor.

The school changed its rules, and Sinema became 1993 co-valedictorian.

Within two years, Sinema would earn a bachelor’s degree from Brigham Young University, paid for by Pell grants and a merit scholarship, and move to the Phoenix area to join her aunt doing social work in low-income schools. She also married a fellow BYU student several years older named Blake Dain. He did not respond to requests for comment.

Over the next two decades, Sinema would earn master’s, law and doctorate degrees from Arizona State University. She would become a criminal defense attorney, win a seat in the Arizona Legislature and publish a book on bipartisanship. She would divorce, come out as bisexual and lead a groundbreaking campaign to defeat a gay-marriage ban.

And now that Sinema serves as one of 435 U.S. representatives, when she’s not voting, meeting constituents or raising millions to defend her competitive district, she relaxes by teaching graduate students and competing in triathlons.

Sinema hasn’t allowed childhood challenges to hinder her, Jeselnik said.

“That always, I think, has remained with her,” the counselor said. “ ‘I’ve got a purpose out there.’ ”

Few who knew her well in childhood, including Jeselnik, were aware of the family's nearly three years in a gas station — perhaps a symptom of the stigma of homelessness and the fear of child-welfare officials.

Little exists in the public record either. No state, county or local Florida agencies keep registers of gas stations or fuel tanks from more than three decades ago. There is no reference in court proceedings to the family living in an abandoned building. Old phone books from Defuniak Springs put the family during those years at Sinema’s stepgrandparents’ home.

When asked about the gas station’s location, her aunt Wiley couldn’t remember the address. But she recalled visiting the run-down shack after the family had moved to the farmhouse. It was close enough to walk to the stepgrandparents’ home, she thought.

“It was kind of like an abandoned store, and you could see where the gas tanks had been located,” Wiley said.

Sinema also told The Republic she couldn’t remember the location, citing her young age at the time. And she wasn’t willing to help find it.

“There are skeptics and there are opponents of everything I do. I’ve gotten used to that over the years,” she said.

But Sinema echoed her aunt’s recollection: The family had lived close enough to her stepgrandparents to use their trailer bathroom and shower about once a week.

“I’m pretty sure it was on Rural Route 2,” she said. “I mean, I was pretty little.”

“By the ’80s it had shut down,” said the neighbor, Wayne Love. “It had a big room in the back of it. ... The last people that owned it were the Howards.”Few businesses exist in the isolated area. Only one neighbor recalled a gas station nearby that was closed at the right time: Tom’s Country Store.

Property records that align with the neighbor’s directions show Sinema’s stepgrandparents bought the property from Tom Paschal, who had named the store.

Reached by phone, Paschal ticked off the wares he stocked.

“Milk, bread, groceries, electrical hardware, tires,” he said. “It was just a little business so people didn’t have to drive 18 miles for a pound of nails.”

Outside he pumped diesel and gas, Paschal said.

“It’s just a little concrete block building, not very big,” he said, about 800 square feet, according to records. “The store has been closed for years.”

The squat white building, fronted by a patch where gas pumps once stood, today is still owned by the Howard family.

Paschal chuckles when asked if the building had water and electricity: “There was a spigot by the gas pumps and a wood heater.”

Was it possible the Howards lived in the store?

Paschal couldn’t recall, but shifting away from the phone, he asked his wife, a Howard relative.

“My wife says Andy and Marilyn lived in there for a little while,” he says. “The old store building now is just kind of storage.”

Shown photos of the building, Sinema confirmed it is where she lived with her family, though she said not even the meager utilities Paschal recalled were available.

“Although we did not have a wood burning stove or working water spigot when we lived there,” she said in a written statement, "this is the right place."

As the debate over economic inequality grows in the 2016 presidential election, Sinema, who has touted herself as “(possibly) the only member of Congress who was homeless as a child,” could have the chance to take a higher-profile role advocating for issues affecting the poor.

One opportunity may come as soon as this spring, if the House takes up legislation that Sinema’s gray-haired constituent was worried about: free and reduced-price school lunch. The same program that kept at least one precocious kid, decades ago, from going hungry.