JANET NAPOLITANO

'Janet Napolitano' (b. November 29, 1957) is the current governor of the U.S. state of Arizona, originally elected in 2002, and re-elected in 2006. She is Arizona's third female governor, and the first female to win re-election. In November 2005, ''Time'' magazine named her one of the five best governors in the U.S. In February 2006, Napolitano was named one of "8 in '08", a group of eight female politicians who could possibly run and/or be elected president in 2008.^[1]

Contents

Early life

Political career

Administration policies

Possible 2010 Senate run

Electoral history

See also

Footnotes

External links

Early life

Napolitano was born in New York City to Jane Marie Winer and Leonard Michael Napolitano, who was the Dean of the University of New Mexico College of Medicine.^[2] She has partial Italian heritage on her father's side and was raised a Methodist in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she graduated from Sandia High School in 1975 and voted Most Likely to Succeed. (Her brother, Leonard Napolitano, class of 1974, was good friends with David Addington, who would become legal counsel to and then chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney[1].) She graduated from Santa Clara University in Santa Clara, California, where she won a Truman Scholarship, and then from the University of Virginia School of Law (Juris Doctor). Napolitano is a member of the Democratic Party. Her early professional career was as a Phoenix-area prosecuting attorney and as the U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona.

Political career

In 1991, while a partner with the private Phoenix law firm Lewis and Roca LLP, Napolitano served as attorney for Anita Hill. Anita Hill testified in the U.S. Senate that then U.S. Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas had addressed her inappropriately 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. As U.S. attorney, she was involved in the investigation of Michael Fortier of Kingman, Arizona, in connection to the Oklahoma City bombing. She ran for and won the position of state attorney general in 1998. Her tenure focused on consumer protection issues and improving general law enforcement.
She won the gubernatorial election of 2002 with 46 percent of the vote, succeeding Republican Jane Dee Hull and defeating her Republican opponent, former congressman Matt Salmon, who received 45 percent of the vote. Napolitano was the first female US governor to succeed another. Some initially considered Napolitano to be a possible running mate for presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry in the 2004 U.S. presidential election but Sen. John Edwards was selected instead.
In November 2006, Napolitano won the gubernatorial election of 2006, defeating the Republican challenger by a nearly 2-1 ratio.
She is the past Chair of the Western Governors Association and served as the chair of the National Governors Association, the first female governor and first governor of Arizona ever to serve in that position, from July 2006 to July 2007.

Administration policies

Napolitano is a prominent national advocate for education and immigration reform. As governor, Napolitano sought funding for the public education system, health care programs, teachers pay, state government workers pay, and prison employees pay.^[3] She signed legislation that offered voluntary full day kindergarten throughout Arizona. Napolitano opened the nation’s first state counter-terrorism center, signed legislation for a prescription drug card for seniors^[4] and signed into law property and income tax cuts, which were proposed by the Republican legislature.
In her first year as governor, Napolitano brought the state's budget from a billion-dollar deficit in the year after the September 11 attacks to a billion-dollar surplus, and did so without a tax increase. Every budget Napolitano has signed has been balanced. Yet, Napolitano received a low grade from the Cato Institute for fiscal spending, citing the fact that her budgets annually increased spending by an average of 6% over the previous year's total. Napolitano's position on budget issues has been to defend education spending as "investing in what matters," citing the benefits of academic achievement and economic growth. Faced with a conservative Republican majority in both houses of the Arizona Legislature, she issued a 115^th veto on June 6, 2006, breaking the record previously held by former Governor Bruce Babbitt. By the end of June 2006 her veto total had grown to 127 vetoes.^[5]
Napolitano has been named one of the five best governors in the nation by TIME and is a noted national leader on immigration policy. In a ''Washington Post'' op-ed, she explained her belief that the topic of illegal immigration was urgent and needed to be solved through comprehensive federal reform.^[6] In another op-ed in the ''Arizona Republic'' Napolitano was critical of sections of the proposal saying that, "As a border state governor and a former attorney general and United States attorney, I can already spot issues that make key provisions of the compromise impracticable and ineffective."^[7] She was the first governor to call for the US National Guard at the U.S.-Mexico border at federal expense and succeed. In July 2007, she signed state legislation designed to penalize employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants. Previously, when Arizona's voters passed Proposition 200, which would not allow illegal immigrants to collect welfare benefits they are not entitled to, Napolitano opposed the measure.

Possible 2010 Senate run

Term Limits will keep Napolitano from seeking a third term. Because of this, Napolitano's name has surfaced as a potential 2010 U.S Senate candidate against incumbent Republican John McCain. McCain has served in the Senate since 1987, and is a contender for the Republican nomination for President in 2008. If McCain is elected President, Napolitano would appoint a person to McCain's seat. Arizona state law mandates that the appointee be one of three elected Republican precinct committeepeople approved by the Arizona Republican Party executive committee. A poll released on August 4, 2007, has Napolitano defeating McCain in 2010 with 47%, to McCain's 36%.[2]

Electoral history

See also

★ Arizona gubernatorial election, 2006

★ AHCCCS: Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (state Medicaid program)

★ AIMS: Arizona's Instrument to Measure Standards (state standardized test for high school students)

★ Protect Arizona Now: Proposition 200

★ Arizona-Mexico Commission

★ Matt Salmon

★ Western Governors University Napolitano is one of two current governors on the WGU board.

Footnotes

1. http://thewhitehouseproject.org/v2/press/2006/February/20060216-8for08pressrel.html
2. http://www.wargs.com/political/napolitano.html
3. Conservative group gives Napolitano an 'F' in spending Mike Sunnucks
4. America's 5 Best Governors Amanda Ripley
5. Governor vetoes 9 of final 28 bills Matthew Benson
6. "The Myth of Amnesty;
The Senate Immigration Bill vs. a Disastrous Status Quo," ''Washington Post'' Op-Ed.
7. AP, May 22, 2007


★ David Brock, "The Real Anita Hill" http://www.uiowa.edu/~030116/153/articles/brock01.htm

★ Democrat attorney general finally wins in 'ugliest race', Tom Squitieri, ''USA Today'', November 11, 2002

★ Janet Napolitano ''CBS News'', July 23, 2004

★ Impact of Napolitano's goals ''The Arizona Republic'', January 11, 2005

External links

★ Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano 'official state site'

★ Janet Napolitano for Governor 'official 2006 campaign site'

★
★ biography

★ National Governors Association - Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano biography

★ Follow the Money - Janet Napolitano 2006 campaign contributions

★ On the Issues - Janet Napolitano issue positions and quotes