Some of the state’s most influential politicians of today and the recent past turned out at Sacramento’s historic Stanford Mansion to help Fresno State’s Maddy Institute raise more than $66,000 to support scholarships for San Joaquin Valley university students.

Gov. Jerry Brown, Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, Senate Minority Leader Bob Huff and Assembly Minority Leader Connie Conway joined emcees John Burton, California Democratic Party chair, and Jim Brulte, former Republican Assembly and Senate Leader.

They helped to raise money for the Institute’s Bob Beverly Sacramento Legislative Intern Scholarship Program that provides students the opportunity to work with legislators at the State Capitol.

The Kenneth L. Maddy Institute at Fresno State was established by the Legislature in 1999 to honor State Sen. Ken Maddy, whose 28 years of public service demonstrated the successful application of personal integrity, legislative know-how and bipartisanship.

Dave Cogdill, a former Senate Minority Leader and current Maddy Institute chair, said, “Sen. Maddy wanted the Institute to focus on training the next generation of Valley leaders and state problem-solvers. Providing our students the ability to learn firsthand about the political process at the Capitol is one way we achieve that goal.”

Since 2001, the Maddy Institute has awarded more than 250 legislative intern scholarships. The Maddy Institute student interns have worked in 19 federal and state legislative offices.

Maddy Institute alumni now are employed in political offices, businesses and nonprofit organizations throughout the Valley, in Sacramento and in Washington, D.C.

In addition to the Maddy Institute’s Legislative Scholar Programs, the Institute‘s other programs include:

  • “The Maddy Report,” a weekly 30-minute public affairs program that airs on KVPT, Channel 18.1, the Fresno PBS affiliate; KSEE, Channel 24.1, Fresno’s NBC affiliate; and statewide on the California Channel.
  • Maddy Daily, a public affairs enewsletter with almost 10,000 subscribers that chronicles public policy and politics in the San Joaquin Valley.
  • “Maddy Political Insider,” a weekly 30-minute public affairs program on KYNO, AM 940, in Fresno.
  • The Maddy Associate Speaker Series. Speakers have included Gov. Brown; former Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn; Alice Rivlin, former head of the White House Office of Management and Budget and the Brookings Institution; David Walker, the U.S. comptroller general; the Heritage Foundation’s Alison Fraser; and David Zeeve of the Concord Coalition.

For more information, contact the Maddy Institute at 559.278.1133 or mkeppler@csufresno.edu.

The Maddy Institute website is www.maddyinstitute.org