WASHINGTON (AFP) — Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano is a breast cancer survivor, mountaineer and Monty Python buff who has been on the front lines of the battle against illegal immigration.
Tipped to be nominated Monday by president-elect Barack Obama as the next secretary of homeland security, the 51-year-old is in line to take over one of the US government's most sprawling and controversial departments.
Aside from commanding Arizona's National Guard, Napolitano's experience of security matters is limited. But her knowledge of immigration is unparalleled with her state viewed as ground zero for the influx of 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 would bring to Washington an infectious sense of humor and an adventurous streak that has seen her hike the 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 it's 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 practise law.
In 2000, Napolitano underwent a mastectomy to remove breast cancer and, despite the pain, spoke just three weeks after the operation at the year's Democratic National Convention. She was elected governor in 2002.
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