Arizona lawmaker who threatened to kill lobbyist resigns

PHOENIX (CN) — Arizona state Representative Leezah Sun, who threatened to kill a lobbyist in her first year as a legislator, has resigned.

The Democrat from Phoenix announced her resignation after the House floor committee met Wednesday afternoon, just a day after the House Ethics Committee released its report finding she engaged in a “pattern of disorderly behavior” in violation of House rules.

“Our Democratic leadership team is grateful to the ethics committee for its diligent, intensive and transparent work on this report, and to the witnesses who came forward to share their stories under incredibly difficult circumstances,” House Democrats wrote in a press release.

“The facts are overwhelmingly clear and speak for themselves. Representative Sun engaged in a pattern of disorderly behavior that damaged the reputation of the House. This is a solemn day, but Representative Sun did what’s best for our state and for the integrity of this body."

The committee didn’t suggest disciplinary action against Sun, but instead recommended that the House as a whole decide how to punish the second-year lawmaker. Typically, legislators who break the rules of their governing body are disciplined either through censure — a formal statement of disapproval — or expulsion.

Perhaps assuming her punishment would be the latter, Sun beat them to the punch, though she didn’t publicly provide a reason for her departure from the House. Her office hasn’t returned a phone call for comment.

Sun’s controversy began soon after she was elected to the House in 2022, before she took office the following January, when Tolleson Elementary School District Superintendent Roger Freeman reported that she intimidated him and threatened him with investigation.

She’s also accused of interfering with a court-ordered custody transfer of four children unrelated to her in June 2023, levying her power as a lawmaker to do so, and even invoking the name of the state’s attorney general while threatening the custody supervisor overseeing the transfer.

Perhaps the most controversial moment though came in August of last year, when Sun was meeting with three lobbyists in a hotel in Tucson. There, she told them that if she saw Pilar Siwani, a lobbyist from Tolleson, Arizona, with whom Sun had an impassioned argument with months earlier, she would “bitch-slap her, throw her off the balcony and fucking kill her.”

Sun testified in a House Ethics Committee hearing last week in which she admitted to saying she’d bitch-slap the lobbyist, but denied threatening to throw her off a balcony. Two of the three lobbyists she met with that day also testified in the hearing, and insisted that Sun lodged the threat.

Sun first interacted with Siwani in May in the Tolleson Civic Center, where Sun apparently was seeking a meeting with the mayor or any City Council members, but they weren’t present at the time.

Meeting instead with three city officials including Siwani, a conversation about funding for a highway off-ramp in Tolleson grew heated, resulting in Sun calling city manager Reyes Medrano a “douchebag” and a “fucking asshole,” according to the restraining order filed against Sun on behalf of the officials. The officials said they felt physically threatened by Sun.

Sun’s attorney replied to House Democrats’ ethics complaint against his client in November 2023. He argued that Medrano couldn’t have been intimidated by Sun, who is 5-foot-4 and was unarmed at the time of the altercation.

The officials also reported that Sun requested to follow their family members on Instagram soon after the argument, which they felt was an act of intimidation.

Sun is the fourth House member to resign this year. Representative Amish Shah, a Democrat from Phoenix, resigned on Wednesday as well. Tempe Democrat Athena Salman and Phoenix Democrat Jennifer Longdon resigned in January. None of them offered a reason for their resignations.

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