Leezah Sun appears in her official portrait. (Arizona State Legislature)
A member of the Arizona state legislature resigned on Wednesday just before a vote likely to result in her expulsion from the chamber. The resignation comes just days after an ethics panel determined the now-former elected official threatened to kill a city lobbyist.
Leezah Sun, a Democrat, previously represented Phoenix as one of three members of the Grand Canyon States’s Legislative District 22.
During a House Ethics Committee hearing last week, two lobbyists testified Sun told them if she saw the other lobbyist in question at a conference held in August 2023, she would physically harm her.
“I will b–––– slap her, throw her over the balcony and kill her,” Sun said, according to the witnesses. The panel, in turn, endorsed that narrative.
Sun consistently maintained she never said anything other than threatening to “b–––– slap” Pilar Sinawi, according to AZ Central. Sinawi is the chief government affairs officer, a lobbying position, for the City of Tolleson — a small town 10 miles due west of Phoenix.
The five-member ethics committee made up of three Republicans and two Democrats, issued a report siding with the witnesses on Tuesday, according to Phoenix-based Fox affiliate KSAZ.
There was, however, a small dispute between witnesses Liz Goodman and Kayla Destiny Ruiz Davidian.
Goodman testified that Sun said: “‘I will b–––– slap her, throw her over the balcony’ — and there was a visible balcony from where we were sitting — ‘and kill her,”” according to the Arizona Republic.
Ruiz testified that she heard essentially the same thing — but with the addition of a four-letter word starting with “F.”
“Is there an extra f-word in there that maybe we’re just adding in or missing,” Rep. Travis Grantham asked Ruiz.
“The f-word was said,” the lobbyist reportedly replied. “I’m positive she said she would (expletive) kill her.”
Sun said there was not even a balcony at the Marriott Tucson Starr Pass Resort & Spa where the conference was held — which Sinawi did not even attend. During the hearing, however, a committee member reportedly pulled up a photo of a balcony at the hotel on their phone.
The ethics complaints against Sun were filed in November 2023 by four of her fellow Democrats: House Minority Leader Lupe Contreras, House Assistant Minority Leader Oscar De Los Santos, and House Minority Whips Nancy Gutierrez and Melody Hernandez.
The balcony threat was not the only incident cited in the complaint, two hearings on the matter, or the final report.
Sun also tried to use her status as an elected official to interfere in a child custody case in June 2023, the report says, according to independent Phoenix TV station KTVK and local CBS affiliate KPHO — which collectively broadcast together as “Arizona’s Family.”
In May 2023, Sun was also found to have become verbally aggressive with the city of Tolleson employees — including Sinawi — which led to those employees obtaining a restraining order against her.
Sun was also found to have engaged in a “pattern of abusing her official title and position” over a meeting with a school district superintendent where she suggested she could have “anybody investigated for any reason,” the TV station reported.
The report took particular interest in how Sun reacted to the allegation about threatening to hurt the lobbyist.
“Representative Sun offered that if she had actually meant to cause Ms. Sinawi harm, she would have actually harmed her,” the report said. “But she offered no different response after the witnesses provided their first-hand accounts, nor did she address the fact that she admitted to saying she would assault the Tolleson official. To the contrary, Rep. Sun described being ‘tickled’ by the allegations made against her.”
Have a tip we should know? [email protected]
