Sam Steiger

Steiger first visited Arizona as a teenager, attended Cornell University and graduated from Colorado A&M. He settled on a Prescott ranch after earning a Purple Heart as a U.S. Army platoon leader in the Korean War. Voters first elected him to the state Senate as a Republican in 1960 and he quickly established himself as a brash, independent politician. He ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 1964 in what was then Arizona's 3rd District, but took the seat two years later after redistricting made his district more GOP-friendly. During five terms in the U.S. House, Steiger burnished his reputation as a bomb thrower with frequent attacks against politicians he saw as self-serving tools of lobbyists. He was a staunch conservative who earned praise from hard-line constitutionalists and derision from environmental groups. In 1976 he won a bruising GOP primary for U.S. Senate against John Conlan, but lost the general election to Dennis DeConcini. Steiger's political career largely went south from there. He lost a 1978 race for state Senate and, after switching to the Libertarian Party, got trounced in the 1982 governor's race. He served one term as Prescott mayor from 1999-2001. He was sidelined by a stroke in 2002 and spent most of his last 10 years in an assisted-living home near downtown Prescott. Steiger is survived by his children, twin sons Gail and Lewis, daughter Delia and a grandson, all of Prescott.