How Kyrsten Sinema — who once said she could 'do anything' if she lost reelection — can get rich now that she's retiring from the Senate

• Kyrsten Sinema once said she could "do anything" after leaving the Senate, according to one book.
• It's true. Now that she's retiring, Sinema has all kinds of get-rich-quick options available to her.

If McKay Coppins's biography of Sen. Mitt Romney is to be believed, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona hasn't been worried about staying in the Senate for quite some time.

According that book, Sinema told the Utah Republican that she didn't care about winning reelection, a prospect that had long been imperiled by breaking with her party on government spending and the Senate's "filibuster" rule.

"I don't care. I can go on any board I want to. I can be a college president. I can do anything," Sinema purportedly told Romney. "I saved the Senate filibuster by myself. I saved the Senate by myself. That's good enough for me."

A spokesperson for Sinema chalked that up to a "game of telephone" in a statement to Business Insider in October, but affirmed that the Arizona senator was "not worried about winning the next election."

Now, Sinema's retiring from the Senate, and the world is indeed her oyster — even her liberal detractors know it.

"Enjoy your lobbying gig and leave the rest of us alone forever," said Leah Greenberg, the co-founder of the liberal group Indivisible, in a statement calling Sinema a "feckless, corrupt egomaniac."

The Arizona senator made little mention of her post-Senate plans in a video announcing her decision, merely saying that she's retiring because she's choosing "civility, understanding, listening, working together to get stuff done."

As of now, Sinema makes the same $174,000 annual salary that every other member of Congress who isn't in leadership makes — plus between $22,000 and $26,000 each year for teaching courses at Arizona State University, according to her recent financial disclosures.

But now that she's moving on, other options abound, including by passing through the much-reviled "revolving door" between public service and the private sector.

Leveraging her relationships by getting into lobbying

Whatever her detractors may say about her, Sinema has excellent relationships with other lawmakers — particularly Republicans.

It's part of the reason she has been so reticent to speak with reporters — she's argued that it's best to engage in negotiations in private, rather than doing so through the press.

To her credit, she delivered some results with that approach, including the bipartisan infrastructure bill, a major gun control package, and the Respect for Marriage Act.

Lawmakers often seek to become lobbyists — where they're paid to push the agenda of a particular group or company on Capitol Hill — precisely because of the relationships they have with lawmakers.

Under existing ethics rules, she can't register as a lobbyist for a year. But that's a short amount of time, and other recently-departed lawmakers have had little issue waiting it out.

For example, Ed Perlmutter — a former Democratic congressman from Colorado — recently registered to lobby for the marijuana industry. Before leaving Congress at the beginning of 2023, he had championed a bill to make it easier for financial firms to do business with marijuana companies in states where it's been legalized.

Choosing to 'go on any board I want to' or becoming a college president

Another popular landing spot for former lawmakers is the corporate boardroom — just ask Democratic Rep. Tom Suozzi of New York or former Rep. Mike Rogers of Michigan.

After leaving Congress last year, Suozzi spent a year in the private sector, where he managed to triple his income by setting up a consulting shop and joining the board of an industrial equipment distributor.

Suozzi earned $82,500 alone from that position, according to documents he filed when he ran for his old seat again in the special election to replace George Santos.

As for Rogers — now the leading GOP Senate candidate in Michigan — he managed to multiply his net worth over the course of nine years in the private sector, including by joining a myriad of boards and working on many of the same issues that he did as the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

Sinema could also seek to become a college president, as she purportedly once told Romney — and she could get rich doing it.

Just ask Ben Sasse, the former GOP senator from Nebraska and perennial critic of former President Donald Trump who resigned from the Senate last year to become the president of the University of Florida, where he's set to make millions of dollars.

Giving paid speeches

This is also a well-worn path for former politicians, but if she does it, she may want to think twice about ever running for office again — giving paid speeches has often come to be a political headache for ex-politicians who emerge from retirement, including Hillary Clinton and Nikki Haley.

Nonetheless, it's a lucrative business.

According to Rogers's financial disclosures, he made $32,000 from paid speeches in 2022 — and he's not even as famous as Sinema.

Writing a tell-all book about the Senate

Technically, Sinema could've done this while still in office — six of her Senate colleagues managed to make more than their official salaries in book sales in 2022.

Writing a book is a tried-and-true way to make some extra money as a well-known politician, and there's little doubt that Sinema has stories to tell and a message to deliver.