Sylvia Laughter ( – October 15, 2022) was an American politician who was a member of the

Arizona House of Representatives The Arizona State House of Representatives is the lower house of the Arizona Legislature, the state legislature of the U.S. state of Arizona. The upper house is the Senate. The House convenes in the legislative chambers at the Arizona State ...

from January 1999 until January 2005. She was the first

Navajo The Navajo (; British English: Navaho; nv, Diné or ') are a Native Americans in the United States, Native American people of the Southwestern United States. With more than 399,494 enrolled tribal members , the Navajo Nation is the largest fe ...

woman to serve in the

Arizona legislature The Arizona State Legislature is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Arizona. It is a bicameral legislature that consists of a lower house, the House of Representatives, and an upper house, the Senate. Composed of 90 legislators, the s ...

, as well as the first and only politically independent legislator to serve in the state legislature since Arizona's

statehood A state is a centralized political organization that imposes and enforces rules over a population within a territory. There is no undisputed definition of a state. One widely used definition comes from the German sociologist Max Weber: a "stat ...

in 1912.

Biography

Laughter was first elected to the House in November 1998 as a Democrat, representing District 3. She was re-elected in 2000, and again after redistricting in 2002, representing District 2. In February 2003, she changed her party affiliation from Democrat to

Independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independe ...

. She ran for re-election in the November 2004 election but was defeated by Democrats

Ann Kirkpatrick Ann Leila Kirkpatrick (born March 24, 1950) is an American politician and retired attorney serving as the United States representative from since 2019. A member of the Democratic Party, she represented from 2009 to 2011 and again from 2013 to ...

and

Albert Tom Albert Tom is a former member of the Arizona House of Representatives from 2005 through 2009. He was first elected to the House in November 2004, and was re-elected in 2006. He lost in the Democratic primary in 2008 to fellow incumbent Thomas Cha ...

. Between 2004 and 2010 she changed her party affiliation back to Democrat, and ran for the

Arizona State Senate The Arizona State Senate is part of the Arizona Legislature, the state legislature of the US state of Arizona. The Senate consists of 30 members each representing an average of 219,859 constituents (2009 figures). Members serve two-year terms w ...

in 2010 in District 2. She lost in the primary to

Jack Jackson, Jr. Jack C. Jackson Jr. (Navajo) is an American attorney and politician from Arizona. A Democrat, he served in the Arizona Senate, representing the state's 2nd district in northern Arizona from 2011 until July 2013 when he left for an appointment wi ...

She died from complications of

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quickl ...

in Mesa, Arizona, on October 15, 2022, at the age of 63.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Laughter, Sylvia 1950s births Year of birth missing 2022 deaths Navajo people Members of the Arizona House of Representatives Arizona Democrats Arizona Independents 20th-century American politicians 20th-century American women politicians 21st-century American politicians 21st-century American women politicians Women state legislators in Arizona People from Navajo County, Arizona 21st-century Native Americans 21st-century Native American women Native American people from Arizona Brigham Young University alumni Deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic in Arizona