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Category: Politics
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Will Us Ambassadors Be Pros or Patrons Under Obama
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Va Businessman Earl Stafford Treats Poor Dispossessed to Obama Inaugural
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David Plouffe to Pen First Inside Account of Obama Campaign
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Janet Napolitano’s unlikely political journey
Janet Napolitano first came to Washington 17 years ago as part of the legal team that represented Anita Hill during Clarence Thomas’ confirmation hearings.
Hill’s sordid testimony about sexual harassment may not have torpedoed Thomas’ career; still, Napolitano attracted notice as a smart, young Democrat who was going places. “Meet the PCTC, a post Clarence Thomas Candidate,” wrote syndicated columnist Ellen Goodman, who urged her to challenge John McCain for his Senate seat.
Hint: Click in map to explore connectionsStory continues below interactive map
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(requires Java)MAP HINTS: Click expands a name. Control+Click centers map on a name. Solid lines are current relations. Dotted lines are former relations. For advanced tools choose Tools > Options from the menu at top. More help. Not seeing the maps? Please go here to check for the latest version of Java.A short time later, Napolitano was tapped by Bill Clinton to be U.S. attorney for Arizona, enabling her to cultivate the law-and-order creds to launch her political career. Five years later, she ran for, and won, the state attorney general’s job, and, in 2002, was elected Arizona’s third female governor.
Today, the popular Democratic governor in a Republican-leaning state is said to be the top candidate for Homeland Security secretary under President-elect Barack Obama, whom she endorsed early in the primaries despite her ties to the Clintons.
Admirers describe the 50-year-old breast cancer survivor as a shrewd politician and problem solver, who is quick to size up people and issues. In 2005, Time Magazine called her one of America’s five best governors.
“Positioning herself as a no-nonsense, pro-business centrist, she has worked outside party lines since coming to office in January 2003 to re-energize a state that, under her predecessors, was marked by recession and scandal.”
By most accounts, Napolitano has navigated a centrist path on immigration issues in Arizona, which shares a 376-mile border with Mexico and where anti-immigrant fervor runs high.
During her first term, she sent National Guardsmen to the border – and forwarded the bill to the federal government. The policy of enlisting the Guard was later adopted by the Bush administration.
Last year, she signed into law the nation’s harshest penalty for employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants, a measure that would take away their business licenses for a second violation.
But Napolitano has also vetoed more extreme measures, for instance, a bill that would have made it a crime for day laborers to look for work on public streets. Earlier this year, she also yanked $1.6 million in state funds that Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio had used to conduct roving immigration raids in the Latino community.
For critics, though, that action was too little, too late.
“My own conclusion is simple,” wrote Alfredo Gutierrez, a onetime Democratic rival sizing her up for homeland security secretary in La Frontera Times. “She’s a tough, smart, competent, ambitious law enforcement officer, a fundamentally moderate Democrat, who is willing to throw immigrants under the bus only when necessary.”
But Doris Meissner, former director of the Immigration and Naturalization Service in the Clinton administration who is now at the Migration Policy Institute, a Washington think tank, said Napolitano “would be an excellent choice” for Homeland Security.
“She has impeccable law-enforcement and leadership credentials,” Meissner told the Washington Independent. “And as a border-state governor, she has direct knowledge and experience of how our broken immigration system is affecting her state and the nation.”
Born in New York City in 1957, Napolitano grew up in Albuquerque, where her father was dean of the University of New Mexico Medical School. In high school, she was voted most likely to succeed.
After majoring in political science at her father’s alma mater, Santa Clara University in California, and attending the University of Virginia School of Law, she clerked for an appellate court judge in Arizona, and then landed a job at Lewis & Roca, a well-regarded Phoenix law firm with strong Democratic ties.
The firm got a call from Sen. Dennis DeConcini, an Arizona Democrat, in October, 1991, asking if it would represent Anita Hill, and Napolitano was put in charge of preparing the testimonies of Hill’s supporting witnesses.
Asked in an interview recently whether she considered herself a feminist, writer Dana Goldstein described how Napolitano looked down at her hands and said, “I just consider myself Janet.”
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This post is tagged with: Anita Hill, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Clarence Thomas, Dennis DeConcini, Janet Napolitano, PoliticsRead related stories: Politics · Recent Stories
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Small donors played comparable roles in Obama and Bush campaignsNovember 30, 2008 at 7:28am
A new study by the Campaign Finance Institute shows that Barack Obama received about the same percentage from small donors in 2008 as George W. Bush did in 2004.
In final days, Bush likely to pardon more than turkeys
The headline in The Onion may have nailed it: “In Thanksgiving Tradition, Bush Pardons Scooter Libby In Giant Turkey Costume.”
Skip the turkey costume, and the reality may not be far off: Many are betting that Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff will be among those granted clemency before the president steps down.
Hint: Click in map to explore connectionsStory continues below interactive map
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(requires Java)MAP HINTS: Click expands a name. Control+Click centers map on a name. Solid lines are current relations. Dotted lines are former relations. For advanced tools choose Tools > Options from the menu at top. More help. Not seeing the maps? Please go here to check for the latest version of Java.Bush had already commuted Libby’s prison sentence after his conviction for perjury and obstruction of justice in the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame. But wiping Libby’s record clean would enable him to practice law again.
Libby is unlikely to be the only last-minute pardon. Other top prospects, listed by ProPublica, are said to include:
- Michael Milken, the 1980s junk bond king whose pardon application is being handled by former U.S. Solicitor General Theodore B. Olson – a close friend of the president’s, and the lawyer who successfully argued Bush v. Gore before the U.S. Supreme Court.
- James Tobin, Bush’s 2004 New England campaign chairman who raised more than $200,000 for the president’s re-election bid. Tobin was indicted in October for making false statements to the FBI in connection with the bureau’s investigation of the plot to jam Democratic Party phones in New Hampshire in 2002;
- Brent Wilkes, the defense contractor who was sentenced to 12 years in prison in February for furnishing former California Congressman Randy Cunningham with yachts, vacations and other luxury items in exchange for lucrative contracts, because of his cooperation with federal investigators;
- J. Steven Griles, a deputy Interior secretary during Bush’s first term who pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice charge sin connection with his 2005 Senate testimony regarding the Jack Abramoff political corruption scandal.
Presidential pardons are a long political tradition, embraced by both parties. In his final days, for instance, George H.W. Bush pardoned former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, along with 10 others who had been convicted in the Iran-Contra scandal, an arms for hostage program during the Reagan administration (when Bush was vice president).
That raised eyebrows, but nothing like the reaction to Bill Clinton’s pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich, whose ex-wife Denise Rich had been a major contributor to his presidential library and to the Democratic Party.
The Rich decision, which became the subject of Congressional and criminal investigations, is likely to come up again in the confirmation hearings for Eric H. Holder Jr, Barack Obama’s choice for attorney general, given Holder’s involvement in the decision.
(One interesting historic footnote: Rich’s attorney from 1985 until the spring of 2000 was Scooter Libby.)
By comparison with his predecessors, the younger Bush has been downright niggardly in his use of pardons, granting clemency to only 171 people over eight years.
Most of those have been for penny-ante crimes. For instance, Leslie O. Collier – one of 14 people he pardoned last week – was pardoned for his conviction for the unauthorized use of a pesticide in killing bald eagles.
Bush’s most significant clemency to date was commuting Libby’s prison sentence. But of course, he still has almost two months to make up for lost time.
Among those who have submitted applications are disgraced Olympic gold medalist Marion Jones, suspended National Football League quarterback Michael Vick, home living doyenne Martha Stewart, former Enron executives Jeffrey Skilling and Andrew Fastow, jailed lobbyist Jack Abramoff and convicted former California Congressman Randy Cunningham.
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This post is tagged with: Brent Wilkes, Crime, George W. Bush, I. Lewis Libby, J. Steven Griles, James Tobin, Marion Jones, Martha Stewart, Michael Milken, Politics, Randall Cunningham0 Comments
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Small donors played comparable roles in Obama and Bush campaignsNovember 30, 2008 at 7:28am
A new study by the Campaign Finance Institute shows that Barack Obama received about the same percentage from small donors in 2008 as George W. Bush did in 2004.
High-powered group, most from Chicago, plans Obama inaugural
The group overseeing Barack Obama’s Jan. 20 inaugural boasts a bipartisan roster of go-getters, most with deep Chicago roots.
In addition to Democrats William Daley, Penny Pritzker, John W. Rogers Jr. and Julianna Smoot, Republican Patrick G. Ryan, the businessman who heads Chicago’s bid for the 2016 Olympics, is a co-chair.
By drawing big names from both parties, Obama is clearly hoping to emphasize his commitment to a bipartisan governing style.
Ryan’s participation particularly helps boost the image of collegiality. The chairman of Chicago-based Aon Corporation has been a major donor to George W. Bush and the Illinois Republican Party. On the other hand, he is spearheading Chicago’s Olympic bid, and it can’t have hurt that Obama made a video last week extolling the Windy City to the International Olympic Committee.
The other co-chairs of the inaugural committee are longtime Obama pals, as well as fund-raisers.
Pritzker, the hotel heiress, and Smoot, a professional Democratic fund-raiser, are credited with Obama’s record-setting campaign war chest.
Daley, a former Commerce secretary and the brother of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, is a Chicago bank executive. Rogers, a longtime friend, is the founder of Ariel Capital Management. (His ex-wife, Desirée Rogers, is set to become White House social secretary.)
The committee will go to some lengths to honor another Obama pledge – to reduce the influence of money on government – by limiting donations to $50,000. George W. Bush’s inaugural committees accepted contributions as high as $250,000, according to the New York Times.
It will also bar any contributions from corporations, political action committees, lobbyists who are currently registered with the federal government, people who are not citizens of the United States and from registered foreign agents.
No pricetag has been put on this inaugural, which is expected to draw a record number of people to the Capitol, perhaps in the millions. To get some perspective, Bush spent around $40 million on his inaugural events in 2005, much of which was raised from corporations and lobbyists.
Committee spokeswoman Linda Douglass said higher costs than usual are expected as a result of the president-elect’s intention to open as many events as possible to the public.
“This inauguration is more than just a celebration of an election,” she said. “This is an event that can be used to inspire and galvanize the public to act. That is what we’re aiming for.”
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This post is tagged with: Barack Obama, Barack Obama inaugural committee, Chicago, John W. Rogers Jr., Julianna Smoot, Patrick G. Ryan, Penny Pritzker, Politics, Recent Stories, William Daley0 Comments
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New owners take charge of Houston AstrosNovember 23, 2011 at 7:38am
After a long vetting process by Major League Baseball, ownership of the Houston Astros passed Tuesday to businessman Jim Crane and his partners.
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