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By Ayala Ochert Say the words “political intern” these days and most people think of Monica Lewinsky or Chandra Levy and the scandals that surrounded them. But anyone who’s met Berkeley’s “Cal in” political interns has a different association with those words: They automatically think of capable, intelligent, responsible students. The interns are part of two summer programs: Cal in the Capital, which sends a select group of students to Washington, D.C.; and Cal in Sacramento, which sends another to the state capital. The programs are highly competitive, so only the best and brightest students get to go—about 50 to Washington and 25 to Sacramento. They spend eight weeks over the summer working in legislative offices, government departments, or non-government organizations, depending on their personal preference. Participating students often have their choice of internships because, in the three decades the programs have been in operation, they have earned formidable reputations. “At times we get more intern requests than we have interns,” says Tara Young, who oversees the programs for the California Alumni Association. “It makes nice shopping for the students.” The CAA provides financial and administrative support, but much of the programs’ strength, say participants, is that they are almost entirely student run. That was part of the vision of J. Michael McGinnis ’67, now senior vice president of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, who dreamed up Cal in the Capital while he was a junior at Berkeley. McGinnis had heard a visitor from Washington complain that his office was swamped with applications from interns and didn’t have time to sort through them all. McGinnis took notice because several of his friends had expressed an interest in working in Washington, but had no idea how to line up positions. So, “just for fun,” McGinnis created Cal in the Capital—a matching service for interns and employers. The program would handle all the applications and deliver a pre-selected group of highly talented, highly motivated interns to Washington, D.C.; in turn students were given a chance to land the best internships.
When McGinnis sought financial support at the start of 1965, his timing could not have been better. It was just months after the Free Speech Movement grabbed public attention, and the University was concerned that Berkeley students were being portrayed as “disruptive radicals and anarchists.” Both the University and the Alumni Association were quick to offer generous funding, and the ASUC also agreed to sponsor the program. It was hoped that the interns would help boost Berkeley’s image in the capital. McGinnis got another lucky break in March 1966. On a plane to Washington, he bumped into John Gardner, Ph.D. ’38, then Secretary for Health, Education, and Welfare and CAA’s Alumnus of the Year, whom he had met just the night before at the Association’s Charter Banquet. When they landed in Washington, Gardner very kindly offered him a ride in his limousine and, more importantly, five internships. The first group, of 35 students, left for Washington in the summer of 1967. Six years later, Cal in Sacramento was started, providing a similar service for students interested in working in the state capital. The programs maintain continuity from one year to the next by selecting new student directors to run the program the following year from among the current crop of interns. The CAA and the alumni clubs in both cities keep a parental eye on the students, but they largely take care of themselves (and each other). The interns travel to Washington or Sacramento as a group and live together in student dorms. Senior Annika Dubrall, a current student director of Cal in the Capital, says this arrangement made her feel safe when she interned with the program last summer (the same time Chandra Levy disappeared). “I really appreciated the sense of community that Cal in the Capital offered. It was like we had transplanted a mini-Cal
With the strong reputation of the program behind them, Cal in the Capital and Sacramento interns are often entrusted with substantial responsibilities. For example, Cindy Leon ’01 took part in Cal in Sacramento in 1998, working for the press office of the Speaker of the House. Although she was just 18 years old at the time, she was allowed to run her own press conference about an address the speaker was to give to a large group of Chicano-Latino students. She rose to the challenge: “I pitched my story to several reporters across the state, and we got the best coverage for that event in five years,” she says. Interns often write bill summaries, and some have even written their own bills and seen them pass through the legislative process. Working in these centers of political activity also can be disillusioning for these young, often idealistic students. “I was a little bit disappointed to see that a lot of Washington works on who you know,” says Dubrall, who interned last year with the lobbying group of the American Bar Association. Dubrall said she was disturbed by what she perceived as special interests at play at a senator’s constituents breakfast she attended. “It was especially disappointing to me because I had admired that senator so much.” Such “reality checks,” though common, don’t seem to put interns off working in either capital—quite the reverse, in fact. “I could really see myself returning because, even though I’m not quite as idealistic as before, I see that the capital has so much to offer,” says Dubrall, echoing the sentiments of many other former interns. Leon, too, had her own lesson in the political realities of the state capital, but says she hopes one day to run for an assembly seat and represent her home town of Ventura County. Leon is currently working for the state’s “Flex Your Power” campaign, a State and Consumer Services Agency program which promotes energy conversation—a job she landed after interning in that agency last summer. It’s not uncommon for interns to be asked to stay on full time, says Betsy Keenan ’71, a former CAA board member who works for the Department of Justice and who regularly takes Cal in the Capital interns herself. Those who aren’t offered jobs straight away often return anyway. “It’s like they catch the bug and want to come back here,” Keenan says. “Cal in” interns often go on to bigger things—Representative Barbara Lee, MSW ’75 and prominent lawyer Zoe Baird ’74, Boalt ’77, both took part in the programs. And, while he didn’t actually take up an internship himself, McGinnis went on to become Assistant Surgeon General at the age of 31, serving in four administrations. “It’s gratifying to see that it’s still going strong,” he says. “The reason the program has done so well is that it’s been run by terrific students who have chaired it along the way.” |
 Cal in the Capital interns celebrated the Fourth of July in Washington, D.C. in 2000.
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