Hill: Napolitano should step aside now

Talk about “straddling the fence …”

Three days ago, President-elect Barack Obama officially announced his selection of Gov. Janet Napolitano to lead the U.S. Department Of Homeland Security. This was no surprise; Napolitano has for several months been suspected as a top-choice for an Obama administration appointment.

What was surprising, however, was the governor’s stance towards Arizona, after Obama announced her selection. Napolitano, we now know, is refusing to step down from her position as governor until she is confirmed by the U.S. Senate for her federal Cabinet position.

Now, for us “little people” who don’t work in the big hallowed halls of government, this only makes sense. Unless you’re fully financially independent, you don’t leave one job, until you’ve fully secured the next job. And to presume that the next job is a done deal before the deal is actually done, is, well, presumptuous.

But when you’re the governor of an entire state, and you’ve successfully led your state into an approximately $2 billion deficit, and you’ve been tapped by the next president of the United States to work in Washington, and your state is desperate to clean up the fiscal crisis that you’re leaving behind, and your insistence on staying on “just a little bit longer” will actually slow down your state’s ability to clean up the mess that you’re leaving — well, maybe you should rethink your approach.

And even if Napolitano’s own self-interest was the only thing that mattered here, it’s still difficult to understand why she’s holding on for just a few more weeks.

Granted she’s not the only politician to “hold on a little longer.” Sen. John McCain held onto his U.S. Senate seat while he was running around the country over the past two years trying to get elected president. And in 2000, Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut actually ran for re-election as a senator while simultaneously running around the country trying to get elected as Al Gore’s vice president (presumably McCain and Lieberman both wanted to keep the “old gig,” just in case the new positions that they aspired to didn’t work out).

But Napolitano’s situation is different from those of McCain and Lieberman. In order to become secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Napolitano merely needs to be confirmed by a vote of the Senate. And with Democrats controlling the Senate, it’s difficult to imagine that Obama’s selection for a Cabinet secretary — any Cabinet secretary — would not be approved expediently.

So why? Why would Napolitano delay the incoming governor’s ability to get started, and insist on still being governor herself when the new Legislature convenes on Jan. 12, and deliver a State of the State address herself, and propose a new state budget herself, when Obama will be sworn in as president eight days later and will have her appointment confirmed in the Senate and pave her way to be gone from Arizona by the end of the month?

It’s chaotic. Yet Napolitano has made a masterful career of “riding the fence.” She’s the governor who once said she’d grant driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants. She’s the governor who dispatched the Arizona National Guard to the Mexican border to protect Arizona from illegal immigration, while refusing to authorize the troops to use “force” while they were there. She’s the governor who vetoed legislation to cut off social services to illegal immigrants. She’s the governor who has insisted that border problems are the fault of the failed Bush administration. She’s the governor who signed the draconian “employer sanctions bill” that balances the problem of illegal immigration on the backs of Arizona business owners, and while signing the bill insisted that it was “flawed” and needed to be amended.

There is a lot about Janet Napolitano’s Arizona legacy that is “flawed” and needs “amending.” She could hasten our ability to begin cleaning up, by graciously bowing out

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Austin Hill of Gilbert is a host for Arizona Web TV (www.Arizonawebtv.com) and is an editorialist for the national news and commentary site Townhall.com. Contact him via e-mail at info@austinhill.net.