John Sinrud

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John Sinrud (born August 30, 1967, Edmonds, Washington, USA) is a Republican State Representative from Belgrade, Montana. Sinrud is the Chair of the House Committee on Appropriations.^[1]

1 History
2 Personal life
3 Controversies
4 References

[edit] History

Sinrud graduated with a bachelor's degree in Political Science from Montana State University in 1998. During his final year at the university, he was the president of the College Republicans.

[edit] Personal life

Sinrud is married and has two children. He attends a nondenominational Christian church.

[edit] Controversies

In December of 2005 Sinrud's wife, Kim, was widely criticized for a letter to the editor that she penned in the Bozeman Daily Chronicle. In the letter she complained that her husband was going to be away from her family as they prepared for Christmas--he would be serving their state 90 miles away in the State Legislature. She compared her husband's service in Helena to that of troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.^[2] Kim Sinrud later apologized in the Chronicle to those who misinterpreted her comments.

In 2006 Sinrud campaigned for U.S. Senator Conrad Burns, who is under investigation by the Department of Justice.^[3] Like Sinrud, Burns is not originally from the state of Montana. Sinrud supported Conrad Burns because Jon Tester and Governor Schweitzer increased the business tax in the State of Montana by $60 million per year and lied to the people of Montana.^{[citation needed]} Senator Burns still has not been charged with any crime by the Justice Department. Along with the investigation on Senator Burns, Montana's other Senator, Max Baucus, has admitted to campaign finance violations with Jack Abramoff.^[4]

During a 2007 Special Session of the Montana State Legislature and in the midst of one of the worst forest fire seasons in Montana history, Representative Sinrud asked, "Why don't we just let them burn?" while complaining about the cost of paying firefighters and firefighting costs.^{[citation needed]} The question was asked in the context of firefighter safety and why the state should pay hundreds of millions of dollars to protect people's homes without ensuring the proper safety of those firefighters.

In what many Montanans would find an ironic argument, Rep. Sinrud wished that the budgeting process in Montana would be more like the federal one written in Washington, D.C.^[5] Sinrud responded by explaining that individual bills would allow more light to be shed on each spending area, giving more choice and control to the whole House.^{[citation needed]}

In December 2007 Representative Sinrud was served a cease and desist order by the State of Montana Department of Labor and Industry for illegally practicing architecture without a license.^[6] Sinrud responded by calling the issue a "political vendetta."^[7] The bill in question is HB640^[8], which was sponsored by the Board of Architects; $4,000 was spent by A.I.A. to lobby the bill,^[9] which died on the floor of the House.