Today we welcome Alex Vassar, former legislative staffer, current California State Library employee, and prolific California state political history tweeter to the program. They begin by discussing the CA Library, what it does and how it has responded to covid. The conversation then turns to Alex’s journey to the Capitol, working as a legislative staffer, and the history of legislative staffers and the Capital Fellows programs. He and Jarhett then compare the disruption of covid to previous disruptions of routine capitol life, including the Spanish Flu, a coup against the Assembly speaker, and constant construction. Finally, they finish talking about the library’s COVID Diaries project, which is collecting stories about experiences during the pandemic from around the state.