Twelve days after Janet Napolitano is re-elected the Tribune breaks this story about an executive order she signed and a veto she issued that have one thing in common — they both provided direct financial benefits to two of her closest and most significant political allies.
According to the editorials endorsing Napolitano, she is a brilliant, fully engaged, hands-on Governor. Of course she claims she knew nothing about this windfall that was going exclusively to her friends.
One of them was Billy Shields, the union leader who took the fall for her over the 9/11 memorial flap. Maybe now we know why.
The Governor’s lack of knowledge here bears a remarkable similarity to her lack of knowledge of political operatives coming from out of state to help her re-election effort. These operatives wound up spending a lot of Democratic Party money attacking me falsely in the Republican primary, then lying about it.
We knew about both of these stories before the election, as did the local media. But they were ignored by the media, and Clean Elections did not allow us the resources to get the message out on our own.
With the election over, it will be interesting to see whether the media continues to pursue these investigations.
