Leo Corbet speaks at a press conference at the Duley Jones Gallery in downtown Scottsdale, endorsing Roselyn O’Connell for U.S. Congress on July 20, 2004.
/Photo: Mike Rynearson
By John D’Anna | Arizona Republic
Former Arizona Senate President Leo Corbet, who was kept alive by an artificial heart for 90 days while awaiting a transplant in 2001, has died.
“I’m a lawyer; people said I didn’t have a heart to begin with,” he joked at the time.
Corbet, 83, had been in declining health in recent months, said longtime friend Paul Muscenti, who had known Corbet since their college days at the University of Arizona.
Corbet was a 33-year-old attorney in 1970 when he upset an incumbent in his first attempt at politics and was elected to the Arizona Senate. During his freshman term, he worked alongside future U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor on reforms to Arizona’s grand jury system.
