Lady who threatened to toss lobbyist off balcony wants to be governor

Disgraced former lawmaker Leezah Sun has set her sights on the governor’s office, hoping that voters will choose her to lead the state despite a political history marked by a near-expulsion from the Arizona Legislature and accusations that she used her position to intimidate and threaten. 

In a video posted on Instagram, replete with sweeping views of the state capitol and footage of her short-lived tenure in the Arizona House of Representatives, Sun announced she will run as an independent next year and said she aims to take on corporate influence in politics.

Sun was elected to the Arizona House of Representatives in 2022, as a Democrat representing a district spanning Goodyear, Tolleson and Avondale. In the first year of her freshman term, Democratic Party leaders filed an ethics complaint against her, alleging that she had used her status as an elected official in an attempt to influence the outcome of a friend’s child custody agreement, intimidated a school superintendent and threatened to kill a Tolleson city lobbyist by throwing her off a hotel balcony. 

After a months-long investigation and two hearings — during neither of which Sun admitted guilt or apologized — the House Ethics Committee concluded that Sun had violated the chamber’s definition of disorderly conduct. But minutes before the full House of Representatives gathered to vote on her expulsion, Sun resigned by email. 

In her video, Sun didn’t mention her ethical scandals, instead highlighting her 2024 election to the Tolleson Union High School District Governing Board as proof that voters still trust her. She characterized her ouster from the state legislature as political retribution. 

“I challenged corporate power and that made me unpopular with political insiders who expected loyalty instead of accountability,” she said. “I was pushed out for refusing to fall in line.”

The 2026 election will be the second time Sun tries to return to state-level office. Last year, she ran for a seat in the Arizona Senate and was overwhelmingly rejected by voters in the Democratic primary, winning only 24% of votes to 76% that were cast in favor of Sen. Eva Diaz.  

Since her resignation from the Arizona legislature, Sun has continued to build a reputation fraught with controversy. In October, a Phoenix court found her guilty of violating a restraining order placed against her by three Tolleson city employees, including the lobbyist whom she had threatened to kill. Sun was sentenced to two years of probation and was subsequently voted out as president of the Tolleson Union High School District Governing Board, although she is still a board member. News of her probation sentence also prompted the Maricopa County Democratic Party to remove her as a precinct committeeperson.

Sun underscored her identification as an independent in her announcement, denouncing both Democrats and Republicans as beholden to corporate influence. 

“I am running for governor to take on corporations that own politicians on both sides of the aisle and to restore power back to the working class of Arizona,” she said. “This campaign is not about left or right, it is about right and wrong.”

Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, is running for reelection. Fighting for the GOP nomination to face Hobbs in the general election are U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs, businesswoman and lobbyist Karrin Taylor Robson and U.S. Rep. David Schweikert.

This story was first published by Arizona Mirror, which is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.