Albany's Intern Auctions
If you thought you were incapable of being shocked anymore by the ongoing scandal that is your state legislature, it's time to rethink that.
Here's the scenario. Your young daughter applies for, and gets, an internship opportunity at the state Capitol. A great opportunity, obviously, and one that many young people across the state vie for, putting effort into the requisite qualifiers: good grades, public service, community volunteer work.
Once in Albany, until 2004, this is what happened to your daughter: she, along with all other female interns, was herded into a newsstand in the Capitol, where legislators would pick and choose their staff based on attractiveness, not résumé. There's a name for that: an auction.
However, this truly is beyond the pale and should be a matter for investigation. If politicians who corralled a bunch of women into a newsstand to be chosen for jobs in legislators' offices based on their sexual attractiveness to the disgusting pigs they were going to work for are still in office today, they should be exposed. That's not consensual behavior, that's sex discrimination. This practice apparently went on until 2004, and there's no excuse for it.
This is the natural and unavoidable consequence of the Albany system of legislators who draw their own district lines and who are more likely to die in office than to lose an election: they prey on your children, because they know that you can't do anything about it.
And there's not a damned thing you can do about it, because you're just going to keep on voting these people back into power. Given the glacial turnover in Albany, the people who bid on your daughter based on her fuckability - your teenage daughter - are all still in office.
Scandalous? Sure.
"Unfortunately, many of the people who seek public office are flawed people to begin with and the environment in Albany just tends to bring that out," said Paul Clyne, former district attorney in Albany.
Clyne issued a scathing report in 2004 on the internship program at the Capitol, famously saying he would never let his daughter become an intern. The report led to reforms in the program, including an end to fraternization between lawmakers and interns outside the office.
"There was a lot hitting on us and boundaries being crossed," said one young woman lobbyist who was part of that scene for years.
Surprising? No, not really. This is your state government at work.
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Albany Reform | Sexism | New York
Notes from a former intern
Submitted by Gothanonymous Reader (not verified) on 21 March 2008 - 3:31pm.
I'm a former NYS Assembly intern (late 90s - early 00s) who stayed after my internship to work full time in Albany. I'll be the first to admit that there was a lot of debauchery and shenanigans, specially between legislators and interns (and staff, and other legislators). However, in the entire time I was there, I never experienced this auction that Gormley is talking about.
Basically all of the intern placements were done by the Intern staff office. If I remember correctly, the director at that time was Jim Murphy, who was one of the nicest guys in Albany and someone who really cared about the well being of all the interns, from finding housing in Albany to ensuring that they were comfortable in the office they were working in.
The intern office is located in room 104, which was right by the entrance to the LOB from the Empire State Plaza and next to the newstand that the author is talking about. The first couple of days of the internship were for orientation and since the newstand was the closest meeting place to the internship office, many interns congregated there during off-hours and breaks. I don't doubt that this led to some legislators walking by and seeing the new intern class, but it in no way meant that these legislators were able to pick out the specific intern they wanted based on looks or attractiveness.
Regardless of some of the mistakes that have happened between legislators and staffers, EVERY single intern that was in my class thought that it was a fantastic experience. Almost 10 years later, I still keep in touch with many of them, whether they're still in government or working in another field. In addition, the contacts I made with legislators, staffers, counsel and even lobbyists have helped me in my career. I would completely recommend to anyone thinking of participating in the program to do so. For me, it really was a positive life changing experience.
Is this a somewhat dated story? It appears to be founded on the
2004 report. If there's a more current part (other than that many elected officials who were in office in 2004 still are) I missed it. It is titillating, however.
State legislatures have often been hot-beds of sex (A standard euphemism for a prostitute used to be one who "worked the legislature.") and Albany was certainly a hard-drinking town last I was there.
Speaking personally, I object more to the fact that Albany's a den of inequity, than that it's a den of iniquity. If the legislators and other big shots would stop screwing ordinary people on policy and stick to sticking it to lobbyists for big corporations, we'd all be better off.