The Capital Fellows Programs

The Capital Fellows Programs started in 1957 with the Assembly Intern Program. By 1965 Assembly Speaker Jesse M. Unruh told a national gathering of state legislators that the program had been “an unqualified success” and a critical part of professionalizing legislative staff. The state Senate created its own Fellows program in 1972 and when budget cuts threatened it in 1984, the Senate moved quickly to save the Senate Fellows Program by shifting it to Sacramento State. The reason according to Cliff Berg (then-executive officer of the Senate Rules Committee) was that “the fellows were too important a resource to lose.”

The shift of the Assembly and Senate Programs to Sacramento State also occasioned the start of the Executive Fellowship Program in 1985. Like its predecessors, the Executive Program quickly proved its value, underscored by Governor Pete Wilson who praised it as giving fellows “an excellent opportunity to bring positive change to our great state.”

The third branch of government gained its program in 1997 with the Judicial Administration Fellowship Program. Once again, the program proved to be a significant part in transforming government. According to State Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald M. George, the program “is an important component of our efforts to introduce and inspire individuals to a career in judicial administration” so that we can maintain “a strong and impartial judiciary … accessible to the people we serve.”