By Katy Grimes

A startling announcement early this morning caught many Californians off guard: Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano is resigning and moving to California to head the University of California system.

This is a real eyebrow-raiser, and just more proof that everything in California is political, including our college system.

UC regents obviously made this decision behind closed doors.

Some say Napolitano’s career with the Obama administration has run its course, particularly given her lack of success with always contentious immigration issues.  And where does a career politician go when that career has run its course? Right to California to become the first female president of the already broken University of California system.

There is the possibility the UC system job is an entre for Napolitano into California politics. She may even be eyeing U.S. Sen. Diane Feinstein’s senate seat.

“I’m not sure if this counts as failing sideways or downwards, but Janet Napolitano, best known for implementing a wholly imaginary form of homeland security, is retiring to pursue her love of overseeing completely dysfunctional organizations,” Daniel Greenfield with Front Page magazine reported.

Napolitano certainly cannot be considered successful at Homeland Security, given the recent terrorism activities in the Boston Marathon bombing by the Tsarnaev brothers.

The decision

“’While some may consider her to be an unconventional choice, Secretary Napolitano is without a doubt the right person at the right time to lead this incredible university,” Sherry Lansing, the regent and former film industry executive who headed the search committee, said in a statement being released Friday, the Los Angeles Times reported.

“In an era of tight budgets, public universities are seeking leaders who can bargain as peers with governors and legislators and also impress alumni and parents,” the Times said. “Napolitano will deal with Gov. Jerry Brown, who is a UC regent and has been pressing UC to move more quickly into online education and to improve graduation rates.”

Not everyone is happy with this decision. “It’s disappointing to see an individual with such a poor record on civil liberties and government transparency selected to run the University of California,” former California Senator and now  Rep. Doug LaMalfa, R-CA, said. “University of California students can look forward to the same authoritarian management style Secretary Napolitano brought to the Department of Homeland Security, hardly a bastion of free speech and open government. While I am pleased to see her leave Homeland Security, Napolitano’s views are entirely incompatible with the UC system’s history of civil liberties and the decision to appoint her is perplexing,” according to the Sacramento Bee.

Who is Janet Napolitano?

By John Seiler

As I’ve mentioned, I’m for some kind of immigration reform — just not the 844-page monstrosity, S. 744, the Senate just passed, 68-32. Nobody knows what’s in it, not even its authors. To read its impenetrable legislativeese is impossible.

But I like to provide a little taste of the absurdity. This is from page 843:

(1) IN GENERAL.—The Secretary may from
15 time to time prescribe regulations increasing or de
16 creasing any dollar amount specified in paragraph
17 (6) of section 203(b) of the Immigration and Nationality
Act, as added by section l18 2, subparagraph
19 (X) of section 101(a)(15) of such Act, as added by
20 section 4801, or subsection (s) of section 214, as
21 added by 4802.

Which Secretary is that? The Secretary of Homeland Security, the unconstitutional, Stasi-style police-state agency Bush pushed on us?

Or is it the secretary that takes notes at the Stasi meeting?

It’s impossible to say. But some people are going to make a lot of money trying to figure it out. The Mercury News reported:

“So sweeping and complex is the immigration bill set for a final vote this week in the U.S. Senate that it will bring an unintended bonanza for one American constituency: the thousands of immigration lawyers who will be hired to interpret it.

“Many of them began gathering in San Francisco on Wednesday for an annual conference to talk shop about America’s immigration code, a hefty tome that could soon get even weightier.”

By 844 pages. And that’s just a start. Interpreting the 844 pages will bring many thousands more regulatory pages.

Why don’t we just grant all 7 billion people on planet earth automatic American citizenship rights? That would be cheaper because the lawyers all would be out of work.