Nancy Naples

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Nancy Naples is the former Commissioner of Motor Vehicles in New York. A strong partisan Republican, whose husband has been a major financial contributor to the Republican Party for many years, Naples was appointed State Motor Vehicles Commissioner by then-Gov. George Pataki in January 2006 following a 12-year political career in Western New York. She served as a Cabinet member for the final year of Pataki's term.

Naples was elected in 1993, 1997, and 2001 as County Comptroller of Erie County, New York. In 2004 she ran for Congress, narrowly losing to then-Democratic Assemblyman Brian Higgins 51%-49% for the right to succeed Republican Jack Quinn. Naples was comptroller when the Erie County fiscal crisis developed and she resigned in June 2005, six months before her term expired. She said she was resigning in order to highlight the fiscal crisis and the need for state control board of the county's finances. Critics pointed out that Naples' resignation deeply damaged her credibility; on the one hand, she was criticized for not being more forcefully vocal in the face of the financial crisis facing Erie County, and on the other hand was roundly criticized for resigning her position at a time that the county needed her purported financial expertise more than ever.

Naples had a career on Wall Street and in her family's insurance company before running for office. In 1998, it was reported that Pataki considered her as a running mate for lieutenant governor. In her capacity as motor vehicles commissioner, Naples served as the Chairwoman of the Governor's Traffic Safety Committee. As commissioner, in keeping with the Pataki administration's long-standing record of using partisan political state officials in public service announcements funded by state tax dollars, Naples recorded a series of statewide television and radio commercials on traffic safety and safe driving.

On June 1, 2006, The Buffalo News reported that Naples was considered by former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld as a possible running mate for lieutenant governor; Weld was at the time a candidate for New York Governor at the time. Weld later selected New York Secretary of State Christopher Jacobs, also from Buffalo, as his running mate, before ending his quixiotic run.

Preceded by Alfreda Slominski	County Comptroller of Erie County, New York 1994 – 2005	Succeeded by James Hartmann
Preceded by Raymond Martinez	Motor Vehicles Commissioner of New York 2006 – 2007	Succeeded by David Swarts