Four juniors from Malibu High School studying Advanced Placement United States History-Jacob Vandor, Jessica Phillips, Thea Stutsman, and I-were selected to travel to Sacramento to meet with California state legislators and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, and learn how the state government functions.
“I chose students who I think will be interested in what is going on up there,” said AP United States History teacher Adam Panish. “I want to expose them to more things than they have access to here at school.”
When we found out we were chosen to go to Sacramento, the four of us were proud to be recognized for our success in the difficult AP class, and excited to be able to learn about current issues that are important to California.
The journey started when we woke up at 4 a.m. on Tuesday, May 20, to catch the 7 a.m. flight to Sacramento from Burbank Airport. By 9 a.m., we had checked into the Hyatt Sacramento Hotel, which is the same hotel where Gov. Schwarzenegger stays when he is in town. It is located across the street from the California State Capitol.
We proceeded to the Sacra-mento Convention Center to attend the 2008 California Business Legislative Summit. We were the only four students in a room with hundreds of business and government leaders. An interesting debate took place on the California budget by Elizabeth Hill of the Legislative Analyst’s Office, political strategist Daniel Schnur and Dan Weintraub of the Sacramento Bee. We then suffered through a boring speech on California election probabilities by Rob Lapsley, and then went to lunch.
After lunch, George Stephanopoulos of ABC News delivered a thought-provoking speech on the 2008 presidential election. Stephanopoulos became famous while serving as President Bill Clinton’s communications director. He broke down the current election contest so it was easy to understand, and posed some interesting theories. For example, he believes that if something were to happen to Barack Obama, the Democratic Convention would turn to Al Gore rather than Hilary Clinton.
When the Stephanopoulos speech ended, the four of us went to the California State Capitol to have private meetings with our local representatives. We met with Jennifer Richards, the legislative aid to Sen. Sheila Kuehl, and learned about how the Senate operates and the challenges Kuehl faced becoming the first openly gay person elected to the California Legislature. We then rushed to meet Assemblymember Julia Brownley, who used to be board president of the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District. She told us about the measures she was trying to pass to improve California schools, and asked us if we had any suggestions to improve the quality of our school.
The four of us agreed it was important to have met Richards and Brownley.
“The meetings showed us how accessible the state government is,” Stutsman said. “Before, it seemed very distant, but this trip brought the government close to us.”
We then met with Dan Dunmoyer, Gov. Schwarzenegger’s deputy chief of staff. Dunmoyer has the stressful job of overseeing many of Schwarzenegger’s projects, which requires Dunmoyer to work 20-hour days. Nevertheless, he spent more than 30 minutes talking with us, and took us on a personal behind-the-scenes tour of the governor’s office.
“We were actually in Schwarzenegger’s smoking tent, and that was really interesting,” said MHS student Phillips of the tent Schwarzenegger uses to entertain foreign dignitaries.
The tent is strategically placed 20 feet from the state Capitol to circumvent the Capitol’s strict no-smoking policy. “That is not something most people get to do.”
After the meeting with Dunmoyer, we ate dinner in an Asian restaurant and walked around Sacramento. We saw a number of poor areas filled with homeless people- a sharp contrast with the image of the majestic state Capitol.
The next morning, we returned to the Sacramento Convention Center to hear Schwarzenegger deliver a speech. We unsuccessfully kept our eyes peeled for National Basketball Association Commissioner David Stern, because we knew he had an afternoon meeting with the governor to discuss the struggling Sacramento Kings. The four of us were impressed with the energy of Schwarzenegger’s speech. He talked about using the lottery to create a Rainy Day Fund to fix the budget crisis, and used a number of movie metaphors, such as vowing to “terminate” job-killing bills.
After Schwarzenegger finished his speech, we walked to the side of the stage to try to meet him. Being the only students in the audience, the governor seemed excited to briefly talk to us and shake our hands. We were impressed with the physical size Schwarzenegger, who used to be a bodybuilder and was named Mr. Olympia.
“You can definitely tell he used to work out,” MHS student Vandor said. “He is a built guy, and his handshake is pretty beefy, but I think I held my own.”
After the speech, we went back to the Capitol and took a tour. We then went to the airport and caught our flight back home.
We thank the Malibu Optimist Club and the Malibu Chamber of Commerce for paying all the expenses to send us to Sacramento. We also thank Mr. Panish for inspiring us to learn, and giving us the background and tools to be able to fully appreciate this experience. Finally, we express our appreciation to Mark Ball of State Farm Insurance, who took the time to chaperone us and teach us what he knows about our state government.
The four of us agreed that we had a great time in Sacramento, and came back with a different perspective of how the government functions.
“Before I went up to Sacramento, I used to think politicians were power-hungry and they were not there for the issues, but for themselves,” Vandor said. “But most of the people I met seemed to care about something. Maybe they did not care about the same things you cared about, but they were there because they cared about something.”