WASHINGTON -- President-elect Barack Obama's apparent selection of Arizona Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano as secretary of homeland security was greeted yesterday as a sign that the new Democratic administration will fundamentally change the tone of the nation's post-Sept. 11 approach to domestic security.

Immigrant advocates, business groups and civil libertarians said the choice of a two-term governor from a Republican-friendly border state could lead to a reversal of policies that they contend unduly punish illegal immigrants, commerce and Americans' privacy. Agency observers on the right and the left say her selection appears to reflect a calculation that she could do so without appearing weak on terrorism.

In fact, immigration opponents and counter-terrorism analysts praised Ms. Napolitano. But they said they think the former federal prosecutor would continue much of the Bush administration's enforcement-first policies, including border security enhancements and promoting national standards for identification cards.

In both promising to restore "balance" to what Democrats say has been a one-sided security debate and seeming to straddle wide political divisions, Ms. Napolitano is much like Mr. Obama, both Republican and Democratic observers said.

Ms. Napolitano is "someone who's fair. She listens. She understands complex issues," said Grant Woods, an Arizona Republican whom Ms. Napolitano succeeded as state attorney general in 1998, and who likened her to Mr. Obama. "Most importantly, she's someone who has excellent judgment," he added.

Jamie Gorelick, a deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration, called Ms. Napolitano "the perfect choice," given that no Democrat has run the troubled and sprawling department since its creation in 2003.

Ms. Napolitano "has run a major bureaucracy," Ms. Gorelick said, "and the biggest challenge for the DHS right now is the management challenge of leading nearly 200,000 workers."

If Ms. Napolitano, 50, is confirmed, Mr. Obama will gain a hardheaded lawyer with a voracious appetite for work, who picks her way deliberately through difficult problems.

She graduated from the University of Santa Clara in California and the University of Virginia Law School before gaining national attention as a lawyer for Anita Hill in her 1991 sexual harassment case against then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas.

Ms. Napolitano also offers a skill set well-suited for DHS secretary -- a role that is a combination of cop, politician, international negotiator and comforter in chief. She was the first woman to serve as U.S. attorney for Arizona, in 1993, and state attorney general, in 1998, and was the first Democratic governor to be elected twice in Republican-leaning Arizona in a quarter-century.

Her selection "bodes well for state and local officials," a U.S. intelligence official said, acknowledging that Washington has frequently clashed with them over DHS grant funding, the role of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and innumerable security mandates.

Groups including the American Immigration Lawyers Association, the National Council of La Raza, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Center for Immigration Studies, which seeks to reduce immigration, praised her yesterday. She "knows better than anyone how important border security is to our national security," said Rep. Brian Bilbray, R-Calif., chairman of the hard-line immigration reform caucus in Congress.