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Janet Napolitano as Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security: Dangers to the University of California and Public Education By Anonymous

Posted by Michael Meranze 
This makes her sound a lot worse than she is -- she is a liberal Democrat who implemented administrative protections for Dream Act students when a divided Congress failed to act to protect them. She was Anita Hill's attorney in the Clarence Thomas mess. She was elected Governor twice in a state that has mostly gone Republican and strong Latino support. A lot of what she had to do at DHS, any Secretary of DHS would have had to do -- it is one of those agencies where the politically-appointed head has only so much leeway.

July 31, 2013 at 7:59 AM Chris Newfield said...

Anon- I'm not sure how you know what she really is, given that 3 weeks after the announcement we still know hardly anything about her view such that we could reconcile the information in this post with your more benign reading. What if who she is is what she did: get with the Obama program on the DREAM Act while being a hardcore law-and-order Democrat from a conservative border state. I'd like to see a real explanation of why an apparently liberal pro-immigration, pro-Dream Act Democrat would take the DHS job, since it is entirely a security and law enforcement position, and why a liberal would then go far beyond the Bush secretaries of DHS, Tom Ridge and Michael Chertoff, in achieving very high numbers of deportations and with insisting that local police enforce immigration provisions against their will. I'm not saying there isn't an explanation, but until I hear one I'll assume she's a centrist, law-and-order Democrat from a conservative border state. If we play "most like" among national Democratic politicians, why isn't she most like Dianne Feinstein?

August 1, 2013 at 6:26 AM Tweets by @cnewf UC Daily Links Michael Meranze's Latest Links Frequent Labels