Napolitano, a cheerful leader for homeland security

At 51, Napolitano was picked by president-elect Barack Obama to take over one of the U.S. government’s most sprawling and controversial departments.

As governor, Napolitano commands Arizona’s National Guard, but her experience is weighted toward law enforcement. She is considered an expert on immigration as her border state is ground zero in the fight over Mexican illegals.

Congress has failed to enact comprehensive immigration reform and states such as Arizona have been forced to adopt their own ad-hoc measures, while fending off a rise in vigilantism among home-grown border protectors.

Immigration advocates hope that Napolitano’s expertise, and new attempts at reform under a president-elect who benefited from the staunch backing of Hispanic voters, would finally move the debate forward.

But at a time of economic distress and rising joblessness, sympathy for illegal immigrants could run lower than ever, and Napolitano could have plenty else on her plate managing the enormous Department of Homeland Security.

An early backer of Obama’s White House bid, she brings to Washington an infectious sense of humor and an adventurous streak that has seen her hike the Himalayas and climb Mount Kilimanjaro.

Napolitano, who is single, was asked on a National Public Radio comedy show in February what was the trick to being a successful female politician.

"I got more votes," Arizona’s second female governor dead-panned, while noting that her desert state does not award its chief executive a mansion to live in.
"I have the only gubernatorial condominium in the United States. I paid for it and its mine," the Monty Python fan declared, adding that after her second and final term: "I want to pay off my condo."

Napolitano, a native of New York, rose to national prominence in 1991 when she was an attorney to Anita Hill, whose allegations of sexual harassment nearly derailed the Senate confirmation of Supreme Court judge Clarence Thomas.

Two years later, president Bill Clinton appointed Napolitano a federal attorney and she was elected Arizona’s first female attorney-general in 1998, 15 years after first moving to the state to practice law.

In 2000, Napolitano underwent a mastectomy for breast cancer and, despite the pain, spoke just three weeks after the operation at the years Democratic National Convention. She was elected governor in 2002.