Troubles grew for a Democratic state lawmaker as two key witnesses in an ethics investigation testified the lawmaker said she would throw a Tolleson official over a balcony and “kill” her.
Rep. Leezah Sun of Phoenix, who’s been accused of violating the Arizona Legislature’s rule against “disorderly behavior,” stuck to her previous denial about the statement during Thursday’s House Ethics Committee hearing.
She also denied that the hotel where she reportedly made the statement had a balcony, as witnesses claimed, but a committee member pulled up a photo of the balcony on her phone.
The committee’s chair, Rep. Joseph Chaplik, R-Scottsdale, cut off Sun repeatedly during her questions and closing arguments for making remarks he considered irrelevant or inappropriate, including “personal attacks on the witnesses.”
The second hearing in the investigation fleshed out the incomplete testimony from the first ethics hearing on Dec. 19 in which Tolleson officials testified they had heard about Sun’s statement secondhand. This time, the three Republicans and two Democrats on the committee got to hear directly from witnesses Liz Goodman and Kayla Destiny Ruiz-Davidian, who both work with a local lobbying firm, about their “strange and uncomfortable” Aug. 29 meeting with Sun in Tucson .