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Matsui News |
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The Robert T. Matsui Center for Politics and Public Service University of California, Berkeley |
Volume 2, Number 1 |
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At the Matsui Center, we are looking forward to another exciting school year and already we are off to a promising start with the naming of our fall Congressional Interns, Student Director for Cal-in-Sacramento the Matsui Lecturer in Residence and a new Legislator-in-Residence. Please read on below to learn more about the great additions to our team and about our upcoming events! Meet our new Congressional Interns  Davi Lang: Interning for Speaker Nancy Pelosi
Davi is a senior double majoring in Political Science and American Studies. Davi’s unique experience as the daughter of a Cambodian immigrant has led to her interest in working on Capitol Hill where, "laws are made, rights are protected, and people are democratically represented." With this internship Davi will gain a greater appreciation and working understanding of an institution that thus far she has only been able to read about.  Elijah Herr: Interning for Senator Ron Wyden
Elijah is a senior majoring in Political Economy with a minor in Public Policy. His main interest lies in discovering how Congress tackles economic issues and he is very excited for this, "amazing opportunity to see how things really play out at the hub of the changing political economy." Elijah's ambition is to work as a public servant to help, "build a country with greater economic and educational opportunity." This internship will provide him with the tools to pursue his dreams. Each year the Matsui Center will award four scholarships at $2,000 each to UC Berkeley undergraduate students admitted to the University of California Washington Program. The grant is meant to help students defray costs of the University of Washington Center.
Hello! My name is Hanna Snider and I am the new student director for the Cal-in-Sacramento (CIS)Fellowship Program for the 2009-2010 year. I am a senior at UC Berkeley, majoring in Political Science with an emphasis on International Relations. As an expression of this interest, I am currently working as a Resident Assistant for Berkeley's historic International House. While I am drawn to the international aspect of Political Science, I am also grateful for what the discipline has taught me about the importance of public service. It was my interest in public service and policymaking thatinspired me to apply to be aCIS Fellow last year. I am grateful for what I learned during my time in the Program's weekly seminar and in the eight weeks I spent interning in the office of Assemblymember Cameron Smyth, a Republican who represents Santa Clarita. Idiscovered the value and impact of local politics on my everyday life. This year I am looking forward to returning to CIS as a leader and as a mentor. I am excited to give back to the Programby helping othersachieve an experience asenriching as my own in the California Capitol. |
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Cal-in-Sac gets 2 Legislators-in-Residence
Sen. Figueroa, a Democrat who represented part of the east bay for nine years, will co-teach this year’s class with Senator Ackerman. Prior to her service in the Senate, Figueroa was the first Latina from Northern California in a century, to be elected to the Assembly. While in office Figueroa was recognized for consistently carrying legislation that demonstrated dedication to her constituents and focused on much of her efforts on health care reform. Figueroa’s diversity of experience and knowledge make her an important addition to IGS and the Cal-in-Sacramento program.
Senator Ackerman, a Republican who represented Orange County, has agreed to come on again as a Legislator-in-Residence for 2010. Ackerman brings over 25 years of experience as a public official to the Matsui Center and the IGS community. Fellows in last years class benefitted greatly from Ackerman’s personal knowledge of Sacramento, one-on-one advising and the guest lecturers he brought to campus, which included Willie Brown, Susan Kennedy, and Dan Walters. The Legislator-in-Residence program brings a former legislator to campus each year to teach and to participate in the life of IGS. Past Legislators-in-Residence have included Dion Aroner, Wilma Chan, Patrick Johnston, Johan Klehs, Ted Lempert, and Darrell Steinberg. Victor Fazio named as Matsui Lecturer
Former California Congressman Victor H. Fazio will serve as the Matsui Lecturer for the 2009-10 academic year, spending a week in residence at Berkeley and delivering the Matsui Lecture on Tuesday, Nov. 3 in the Lipman Room in Barrows Hall. "Congressman Fazio will bring to Berkeley the lessons learned through a unique and varied blend of experiences. He served 20 years in Congress, served in the state Assembly, was a member of local government agencies in Sacramento, and even founded California Journal, a magazine of political journalism," said Ethan Rarick, Matsui Center Director. "Bob Matsui was a colleague and friend, and I’m pleased to be asked to deliver a lecture in his honor," Fazio said. "Bob was a wonderful public servant, working for the good of his constituents at home and the country as a whole. I hope today’s students will be inspired toward a life of public service." |
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Matsui Forum: Will young voters change America?
Meghan McCain, Mike Connery, Randi Zuckerberg, Nicole Lapin, and Heather Smith at the Matsui Forum The jump in young voter turnout in the 2008 presidential campaign will likely continue for years to come, youth voter activists said at the Inaugural Matsui Forum last spring. "It is just going to continue on the upswing, we have no reason to believe it won’t," said Meghan McCain, who saw the 2008 campaign up-close as she campaigned for her father, Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain. The aim of the night was to evaluate why, and in which ways, youth involvement in politics is rising. Between 2000 and 2004’s presidential elections, turn out among people between 18 and 29 increased by the largest amount since 18-year-olds won the right to vote in 1971. Heather Smith, Executive Director of Rock the Vote said that though many considered the increase to be an anomaly, it was actually "a trend that was just beginning." "The conventional wisdom for decades was that young people don’t matter. You’re apathetic, you don’t count and you certainly don’t vote. And that’s what the media told you, what candidates told you and you were all but ignored by the political process," Smith said. While all panelists agreed that the youth vote is steadily increasing, understanding of the role that social networking sites play in facilitating involvement differed. "Working with Facebook and these new technologies people are not only communicating but they are convincing their peers to go to the polls and you just saw young people show up in record number and actually impact the outcome of this election," Smith said, in reference to the success of the youth vote in the Iowa caucuses last year. Chief Spokeswoman for Facebook, Randi Zuckerberg agreed, stating that participation went up 2500 percent in Iowa, credit she gave to the partnership of Facebook and Rock the Vote. McCain did not feel that Facebook or other social networking sites were as helpful for the Republican Party. She pointed to the difference between Obama’s success at youth outreach on Facebook and John McCain’s. "My father had 500,000 followers on Facebook and I think Obama had 5,000,000. So there is a disconnect going on and whether it’s the Republican Party’s fault, or something else, I don’t know." Michael Connery, author of Youth to Power: How Today’s Young Voters are Building Tomorrow’s Progressive Majority writer for futuremajority.com, was the lone cautionary voice against overselling the role of technology, "Technology is not the end-all, be-all of increasing voter participation. Facebook is a new public square to meet people, bring them in to your campaign, and get them to do more things offline. But you have to have those conversations, you have to bring them offline and the campaign has to treat young people like a valid constituency." The other panelists maintained that technology’s role in increasing the accessibility of peer opinions and candidates via social networking sites was in fact a driving factor for youth involvement, and a rapidly expanding function of communication. "It makes people, in theory, feel that they are being listened to. Utilizing some of that technology in the media is only going to increase moving forward," Nicole Lapin, CNN.com anchor, stated, describing the shift of power to new technologies for the media as well. 28th Annual Review of the Presidency
David Frum, Maria Echaveste, Ethan Rarick, Kathleen Parker, and Theda Skocpol at the Annual Review of the Presidency Despite the historic nature of Barack Obama’s election as the first African-American president, he was elected for the most traditional of reasons -- the country wanted change and he offered it, experts said at the IGS Annual Review of the Presidency. "I think around September, October of 2008 the economic crisis was such that for a number of people in the middle, race just didn’t become the issue. They didn’t have the luxury to focus on race," said Maria Echaveste, former White House Deputy Chief of Staff to President Bill anda lecturer-in-residence at the UC-Berkeley Law School. Kathleen Parker, a syndicated columnist for the Washington Post Writers Group agreed. "Sentiment was so fiercely anti-Bush that there was a good shot for somebody with charm and charisma and intelligence to win," she said. This was the 27th annual version of the presidential event, part of the programming of IGS’ Robert T. Matsui Center for Politics and Public Service. As usual, it was co-sponsored with the UC-Berkeley Extension Service and drew a capacity crowd to Dwinelle Hall.Harvard scholar Theda Skocpol was not as quick to let Republican nominee Sen. John McCain off the hook. "I do think that any articulate, convincing Democrat would have won in the circumstances that prevailed after the economic collapse," said Skocpol, a professor of government and sociology. "But this was a much more commanding victory than it had to be. McCain blew it, in terms of what he could have done. He made the Palin gamble which was inauthentic and came across as inauthentic, which all political scientists agree cost him a lot." The panel spent the night assessing the first three months of the new administration. All agreed that the economic crisis at home and voters’ perceptions of the shortcomings of the Bush administration brought Obama to office, but there was disagreement on whether or not he would be able to deliver sustainable results on healthcare reform and the economy. "What we’re seeing is a presidency of very big gambles and I don’t think that economics as we know it suggests that these gambles are going to work," said David Frum, former economic speechwriter for President George W. Bush. Frum went on to predict that the biggest problem for the Obama administration would be healthcare reform. "In a presidency with a lot of gambles, this may be the largest gamble yet that Obama is making. He wants to extend insurance to include most, if not all, of the currently uninsured, and at the same time all of his projections are predicated on the idea that he is going to be able to slow the increase in health care cost by some very dramatic numbers." Skocpol disagreed with the categorization of healthcare reform as a gamble, but instead saw it as a return to previous principles. "I do not think healthcare reform is ambitious in relation to the deteriorating opportunity. He is looking for a way to reinvent an America of opportunity and broad security and it’s a reinvention, it’s not some wild departure from our best traditions." Wednesday, October 14, 2009, 9 a.m. – 5:30 p.m.— Getting to Reform: Avenues to Constitutional Change in California A daylong conference examining the advantages and drawbacks of various paths to reform and the next steps necessary for concrete achievements. Friday, October 23, 2009, 9 a.m. – 6 p.m. — What Ails California? Tuesday, November 3, 2009—Vic Fazio to deliver Matsui Lecture Friday, November 6, 2009—Cal-in-Sacramento Applications are due |
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2010 Cal-in-Sacramento Student Director
Senator Elizabeth Figueroa
Senator Richard Ackerman
