About Sydney


	About Sydney A Successful Advocate for Change A Committed Conservative Sydney Hay is an advocate for taxpayers, small businesses, natural resource industries and parents seeking educational choice for their children, with a 20-year record of successfully enacting conservative government reforms. A daughter of the West, Sydney was born and raised in a small town in Colorado, graduated Summa Cum Laude from Kansas Newman College and has been a proud Arizona resident for nearly 30 years. With her Bachelor of Science degree in education in hand, Sydney spent several years teaching elementary and high school students, both in Kansas and in Arizona. Inspired by the Reagan revolution and concerned about the coarsening culture in America as well as the continual loss of individual liberties, Sydney became a highly respected and skilled political organizer and association management executive. For more than 20 years, Sydney has been an indefatigable champion of conservative reforms and one of the most successful Arizonans in lowering taxes, requiring government accountability and expanding educational opportunities for children. Arizona taxpayers have enjoyed 15 years without a state income tax increase, in no small part because of Sydney’s leadership of the campaign to require a 2/3rds vote before any tax or fee can be raised and her tireless work at the Arizona Legislature. A champion of government accountability and reform, Sydney helped ensure the passage of ethics legislation that prohibited Legislators from accepting gifts from lobbyists, keeping campaign cash for personal use or becoming a lobbyist immediately after leaving office – reforms Congress has refused to pass. Sydney’s success in passing scholarship tax credits has become a national model with several states adopting Arizona’s first-in-the-nation legislation. Sydney is President of the Arizona Mining Association, the former Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Arizona Department of Mines and Mineral Resources and has served for the past thirteen years as Executive Director of AMIGOS (Arizona Mining and Industry Get Our Support, a trade association of the small to mid-sized businesses that supply Arizona's vital copper mining industry) – all firsts for a woman in this male-dominated industry. A small business owner, Sydney is President of her own public affairs and association management firm and has managed numerous political campaigns from local to national in scope. For five years Sydney hosted a daily radio talk show giving her opportunity to both speak and listen to the people of Arizona, discussing their views on public policy. Newspapers and magazines across the country have published dozens of Sydney’s opinion/editorials. She is a frequent guest on local and national radio and television programs as a political commentator, and is a highly sought-after lecturer at conferences across the country. Her son Andrew is an airline pilot and her daughter Sarah and her son-in-law Ron are the proud parents of Sydney's three grandchildren Andrew, Caleb and Sophia. Sydney and her husband Dan divide their time between homes in Munds Park and Scottsdale with their two dogs a lovable old quarter horse named Earl.