Leezah Sun Doesn't Learn a Lesson

Intimidating witnesses is pretty gangster ... Gilbert police finally makes an arrest ... And John McCain isn't even paying rent.

Democratic Rep. Leezah Sun just can’t help herself. 

In case you need a refresher, the first-term lawmaker is under an ethics investigation for her bizarre behavior, screaming matches, threats and various beefs with people in her district and at the Capitol. 

But the ongoing ethics investigation hasn’t stopped her from lashing out at those she thinks have wronged her.

One of the several episodes now under Ethics Committee scrutiny was a threat against Littleton Elementary School District Superintendent Roger Freeman that culminated with him filing an ethics complaint against her and testifying about her behavior to the House Ethics Committee. He said she threatened to file a complaint about him to the attorney general, and claimed she didn’t need any reason.

“I’ve been working with the Legislature for 30 years … that’s never happened to me before, so I was quite taken aback,” Freeman told the committee last month. “I literally talked to most all of my colleagues about it and sought people’s advice.”

After he testified, any reasonable person in Sun’s shoes would know that it would be a bad idea to contact Freeman — like, say, by showing up at Tuesday night’s Littleton Elementary School District Governing Board meeting to trash him while the board was reviewing his contract. 

But as we’ve already established, Sun is not a reasonable person. 

So on Tuesday night, Sun went down to the Littleton school board meeting to tell the board all about her problems with Freeman, which amounted to bewilderment that Freeman could have such a “pretty astonishing misinterpretation of events” about the time she “strongly verbalized” her support for one board member and displeasure with Freeman’s comments about him and mentioned how she wished the law allowing lawmakers to spark attorney general investigations into local governments applied to school districts.¹

She couldn’t believe Freeman took that as a threat to his job, she told the board at the call to the public during its meeting to consider his employment contract.

Freeman’s ethics complaint against her “leaves the district as a whole vulnerable, as well as our community,” she said. She accused him of inappropriately “airing dirty laundry” in public. And she questioned what would motivate him to make such “bold, egregious” claims about her. 

Of course, she then provided her own answer: He’s part of the vast West Valley Democratic conspiracy against her because he donated $250 to House Democratic Leader Lupe Contreras’ campaign. She had to be repeatedly interrupted to stop talking after she went over the three-minute speaking limit.

The House Ethics Committee’s investigation into Sun is still ongoing and the evidence is still piling up. It’s not looking good for her.

We won’t be surprised if there’s another complaint incoming after Sun’s attempt to get a witness against her fired. (The House told us yesterday it hadn’t received anything new yet.) This isn’t even the first time she’s attempted to get back at Freeman since he first complained about her — Freeman said at the December hearing that she had emailed the board president about him.

After hearing from several of the victims of Sun’s harassment and outbursts last month, the committee was scheduled to hear more testimony from witnesses today. That hearing got postponed because some of the witnesses had to reschedule, we heard from the House, but it’ll get rescheduled. 

Sun better hope they reschedule it fast. It’s clear she’s incapable of resisting the urge to make things worse. The longer this goes on, the more trouble she’s going to get herself in.

Him first, huh?: The Gilbert Police arrested one teenager accused of a brutal gang attack on another at the Gilbert In-N-Out five months ago, it announced yesterday. The arrest was an 18-year-old Black kid whose mugshot was immediately plastered on the internet, which raised eyebrows considering the vast majority of the Gilbert Goons members are allegedly wealthy white kids. (Police didn’t confirm they think he’s a Goon, but the pattern matches their alleged attacks.) The Pinal County Sheriff’s Office announced later in the day that it had also made an arrest of a 20-year-old in a separate attack in November in San Tan Valley. Neither arrest was related to the killing of teen Preston Lord.

Legal risks for raises: Phoenix City Council adopted a prevailing wage ordinance for workers on city-funded construction projects, despite possible violations of state law, the Republic’s Taylor Seely reports. This is the third time the council has considered the ordinance, which sets workers’ pay at similar rates to those doing comparable work in the area, but only for construction projects costing $4 million or more. Tucson passed a similar ordinance yesterday requiring public works projects employees working on projects $2 million or more to be paid a prevailing wage, per the Star’s Charles Borla. 

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Pick me!: The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors accepted Sheriff Paul Penzone’s resignation, and now they’re looking for someone to take over his job until the November election. Chief Deputy Sheriff Russ Skinner will step in for the meantime, per the Daily Independent. Penzone previously told KTAR he’s leaving to pursue other unnamed opportunities. If you don’t have any experience in law enforcement but still want to apply, go ahead! The only requirement is the appointee must be a Democrat who lives in Maricopa County.

Horne isn’t the lawyer we’d hire: A Tucson judge denied public schools chief Tom Horne’s request for a jury in his continued legal endeavor to restrict transgender girls from joining certain school sports teams, the Arizona Mirror’s Gloria Gomez reports. The same judge, Jennifer Zipps, also paused enforcement of a 2022 law barring trans girls from playing on teams consistent with their gender identity after a group of students sued Horne over the policy last year.  Meanwhile, Horne issued Arizona’s public and charter schools a two-week notice to prove they’re complying with a 2021 state law requiring curriculums to include lessons about the Holocaust, per FOX10’s Danielle Miller and Kenneth Wong.

Dissolving the Good Old Boys Club: Sen. Jake Hoffman introduced legislation to disband the Arizona Commerce Authority after Gov. Katie Hobbs praised the economic development organization in her State of the State address. While Hobbs would likely hit the bill with a veto if it makes it through the legislation process, Capitol scribe Howie Fischer points out the Republican-controlled Legislature has to approve the agency’s continuation through a periodic review, or it will dissolve in June.  

“(The ACA has) ballooned into the epicenter for waste, mismanagement and luxury spending at a time when Arizonans are struggling in Democrats’ failing economy,” Hoffman told Fischer. 

Solid life lesson: Arizona-based Capitol rioter Ray Epps was sentenced to a year of probation for his participation in the attack despite prosecutors’ request for a six-month prison term, per the Associated Press. Epps fled his Queen Creek home after becoming the subject of conspiracy theories he was an undercover government agent who helped incite the riot and has since retracted his beliefs the 2020 election was stolen. 

“I have learned that truth is not always found in the places that I used to trust,” Epps said before learning his sentence.

Numbers don’t lie: An independent budget analysis shows Arizona’s general fund pays more for ESAs than public school education, despite school voucher supporters’ claims the scholarships save taxpayer dollars, 12News’ Brahm Resnik reports. The Joint Legislative Budget Committee report said the per-pupil cost for public high schools is $900 lower than an ESA.

High hopes: Three years into recreational weed’s legal status in Arizona, recreational marijuana sales are doubling that of the medical industry, the Arizona Mirror’s David Abbott reports. Meanwhile, the $5 million research grant for magic mushrooms lawmakers passed last year without allowing the Department of Health Services to divvy out the funds for more than a year could be saved by new legislation to extend the expiration period, per the Republic’s Ray Stern. 

We were disappointed when Substack announced it would stick to its completely hands-off approach to content moderation after finding itself with a completely foreseeable “Nazi problem,” as the Atlantic detailed last month.

A few of you have emailed us about it, and we even lost a subscriber or two because of Substack’s original decision to not ban Nazis. It’s not a problem unique to Substack (ahem, Twitter), but it’s one of the several compelling reasons we’ve been seriously considering leaving the platform. Unfortunately, 2024 is an election year and we simply don’t have time to figure out the logistics of migrating right now. It’s not as easy as it sounds.

But we got a bit of good news from our Regrettable Platform this week: it’s kicking some Nazis and white supremacists off the site (thanks in part to pressure from former Republic Capitol beat reporter turned tech newsletter mogul Casey Newton). 

While Substack’s new “fewer Nazis” policy isn’t good enough, it’s a step in the right direction. 

Hopefully, it’s the first step of many. If not, we’ll be leaving as soon as we have the bandwidth to make a transition.

The ghost of John McCain is living inside Donald Trump’s brain, both in real life — and in an upcoming musical play produced by Arizonans. 

The concept is pretty fun. The late senator wakes up in the afterlife horrified that he has somehow been trapped inside Trump’s mind. Needless to say, he isn’t pleased and must “fight for his freedom by engaging in a high-stakes debate over life, legacy, and American values,” Axios Phoenix’s Jeremy Duda reports. 

“The Ghost of John McCain” is the brainchild of local politicos Max Fose, a former McCain aide, and Jason Rose, a PR guru who also created “¡Americano! The Musical.” It’s holding an invitation-only reading at Sunlight Studios in New York on Thursday, Duda reports.

1. The board member in question is Markus Ceniceros, who was cited for stealing campaign signs from Sun’s opponents on her behalf.