Editor's Note: This is another installment in the Rapier's daily profiles of one of Barack Obama's nominees to a cabinet or high-level administration post.
Secretary of Homeland Security:
Born November 29, 1957. Napolitano is the current governor of the U.S. state of Arizona, originally elected in 2002 and re-elected in 2006.
Napolitano was born in New York City. She is a Methodist. She was raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Albuquerque, New Mexico. She graduated from Santa Clara University in Santa Clara, California, and then received her Juris Doctor (J.D.) from the University of Virginia School of Law. In 1991, while a partner with the private Phoenix law firm Lewis and Roca LLP, Napolitano served as attorney for Anita Hill (who testified in the U.S. Senate that then U.S. Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas had sexually harassed her ten years earlier when she was his subordinate at the federal EEOC).
In 1993, Napolitano was appointed by President Bill Clinton as United States Attorney for the District of Arizona. She ran for and won the position of Arizona Attorney General in 1998. While still serving as attorney general, she spoke at the 2000 Democratic National Convention just three weeks after having a mastectomy.
In November 2006, Napolitano won the gubernatorial election of 2006, defeating the Republican challenger, Len Munsil, by a nearly 2-1 ratio and becoming the first woman to be re-elected to that office (she is Arizona's third female governor). If Napolitano is confirmed as Secretary of Homeland Security, Secretary of State Jan Brewer will become the governor of Arizona, as the state does not have a lieutenant governor.
To combat illegal immigration, the governor has opted to: crackdown on employers who hire undocumented workers; catch forgers of I.D. documents; push for more Homeland Security measures to deter border crossings.
Napolitano is regarded as perhaps the most effective governor at combatting illegal immigration, although conservatives deride her refusal to support legislation targeting illegal immigrants working for U.S. employers.
Napolitano is single. According to the Arizona Republic, "Napolitano, who has never been married or had children, has long been the subject of a whisper campaign about her sexuality, including some dirty campaign tricks in 2002 when 'vote gay' fliers were posted next to her campaign signs. She is not gay, she has said, 'just a straight, single workaholic.' Gov Napolitano says she opposes same-sex marriage (as does Obama), and supports an Arizona law barring gay marriages. However, she opposed the Federal Marriage amendment to the U.S. Constitution on the grounds of states rights.
After a news conference in Philadelphia on December 2, 2008, Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell made a controversial remark about why he thought Napolitano being single qualified her to serve as Secretary for Homeland Security: "Janet's perfect for that job. Because for that job, you have to have no life. Janet has no family. Perfect. She can devote, literally, 19-20 hours a day to it." Rendell, it should be noted, has NOT been asked to serve in the Obama cabinet...
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