Legal News

Report: Arizona?s Napolitano Being Vetted for Homeland Security Job

By Dan Slater

President Bush is greeted by Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., left, Sen. John McCain, R- Ariz, second from left, and Gov. Janet Napolitano, D-Ariz., right, before making remarks about border security and immigration reform at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Nov. 28, 2005 in Tuscon, Ariz. (AP/Evan Vucci)

UPDATE: As President-elect Obama reportedly vets Janet Napolitano for Homeland Security Secretary, we noticed one interesting tidbit about Napolitano’s past that ties together Arizona politics, the McCains, and, perhaps most importantly for us, prosecutorial recusal.

The AP reports that when Napolitano was a U.S. attorney in Phoenix, having been appointed by former President Bill Clinton, the Justice Department decided against prosecuting Cindy McCain for the theft of prescription drugs from her medical charity. McCain, notes the AP, went public in 1994 about her prescription drug addiction, admitting she stole medicine from the charity several times between 1990 and 1992. The Justice Department decided against prosecuting her after she agreed to undergo drug treatment.

Napolitano spokeswoman Jeanine L’Ecuyer told the AP that Napolitano was acting U.S. attorney at the time and recused herself from the matter because she was awaiting Senate confirmation. “The governor was interim U.S. attorney. She did have responsibilities of the office but was waiting confirmation by the U.S. Senate. Because [John] McCain would ultimately vote on her nomination and this involved a senator’s wife, she was in her words, ‘walled off’ from this case.”
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In the run up to the 2008 presidential election, her name was bandied about as a possible Democratic VP candidate. Now Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano — a former U.S. Attorney and Arizona’s first female AG — is emerging as a possible homeland security secretary, according to a CNN report.

Napolitano (Santa Clara U., UVA Law) busted onto the national scene in 1991, when she represented Anita Hill in her sexual-harassment case against Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas.

A 2005 Time article that named Napolitano, 50, one of the country’s five best governors provided this background:

Governing a hard-core republican state like Arizona is a steep proposition for a Democrat. Janet Napolitano likes the steeps. A former mountain climber who has hiked the Himalayas and summited Mount Kilimanjaro, Napolitano . . . [has positioned] herself as a no-nonsense, pro-business centrist . . .

The one issue Republicans think they can use against the popular Napolitano is illegal immigration, because the huge number of border crossings have left many Arizonans feeling overwhelmed and powerless. Her critics claim she came to the problem late, but she seems to have navigated it deftly. [In November 2004] angry voters passed Proposition 200, which in part provides that undocumented aliens receive no state welfare benefits that they are not entitled to. Napolitano opposed it, as well as several bills that targeted illegal immigrants.

Instead, she looked to the systems and people that make illegal immigration possible: she ordered state contractors to ensure that their employees are legal, set up an undercover unit to catch forgers of identity documents and demanded the Federal Government, which is responsible for immigration, reimburse the $217 million Arizona has spent since 2003 on imprisoning undocumented aliens convicted of crimes. In mid-August she declared a state of emergency in Arizona to direct more funds to protecting border areas from illegal crossings. . .

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on November 20, 2008 (boomark / email).