This Jan. 30, 2008, file photo shows Democratic Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, left, clapping for Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., as he holds a "Stand for Change" rally at Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, file)
PHOENIX (AP) – When Democrat Janet Napolitano resigned as Arizona governor to become U.S. Homeland Security secretary, it meant big changes for her senior advisers and other top appointees.
The scramble for new jobs when the boss leaves comes with public service at that level of government. Some members of her administration had retired or left for new jobs before the end, but many followed her to Washington. Others have found landing spots in Arizona.
In addition to several Napolitano associates who didn’t serve in her gubernatorial administration, at least nine people from the gubernatorial staff went with her to Homeland Security.
Those include Noah Kroloff, who in Arizona was a senior policy adviser and deputy chief of staff and who ran her 2006 re-election campaign. He’s now Napolitano’s chief of staff for policy at Homeland Security.
Jan Lesher, Napolitano’s final gubernatorial chief of staff and before that Commerce Department director and head of the governor’s office for southern Arizona, also is at Homeland Security, serving as chief of staff for operations.
Chris Cummiskey, a former legislator who headed the state’s information technology agency under Napolitano, also has a senior staff post at the department.
Another former state Cabinet member, former Corrections Department Director Dora Schriro, also went to Homeland Security with Napolitano but since left to head the New York City jail system.
Napolitano has kept “a close cadre” of formal and informal advisers from her years as U.S. attorney and then attorney general and governor, so it’s not surprising she would take trusted people with her to Washington, said Doug Cole, a Republican who has held senior posts in several Arizona congressional offices and in ex-Gov. Fife Symington’s administration.
However, the number accompanying Napolitano to DHS is noticeably larger than when ex-Gov. Bruce Babbitt became Interior secretary in the Clinton administration and when former Arizona Transportation Director Mary Peters served in President George W. Bush’s administration in top transportation posts, Cole said.
Former Napolitano spokeswoman Jeanine L’Ecuyer said she didn’t hear a lot of talk among fellow staffers about their futures in the run-up to Napolitano’s Jan. 20 resignation.
“Things were so hectic in those last few days,” L’Ecuyer said. “Some people had a pretty good notion they would be invited to go with her.”
However, uncertainty goes with public service at that level of government, without any expectation that there’d be another job, L’Ecuyer said. “You take that job understanding that it stops at some point – that you have completed your service.”
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.
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