California State University, Sacramento, and the University of Southern California have snagged a deal to run a highly regarded national training institute for legislative staffers, officials from both schools announced Friday.

The Legislative Staff Management Institute, created 14 years ago by the bipartisan National Conference of State Legislatures, will leave its longtime home at the University of Minnesota and move next summer to USC's center in downtown Sacramento.

The Center for California Studies at CSU Sacramento and USC's State Capital Center teamed to bid for the leadership and management program, which draws experienced legislative staff members from statehouses around the country.

CSUS and USC beat out bids from the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota - where the NCSL program has been housed since 1990 - and the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin.

"This is the Kennedy School for all these programs," said Tim Hodson, director of the Center for California Studies. Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government is considered the nation's top public policy graduate program.

"One component will be how you make sure that the staff of a legislature, whether they work in Tallahassee or Juneau, keeps a feeling that what they are doing is public service and that they have a special responsibility to the democratic process even when the institution is derided by the public," he said.

Karl Kurtz, director of state services for the Denver-based NCSL, said the organization wanted to explore the possibility of moving the institute to another state after 14 years in Minnesota and opened it up for proposals.

The CSUS-USC deal is good for five years, Kurtz said.

Leadership, ethics, recruiting a diverse work force and other management issues will be the emphasis of the program, said Rich Callahan, associate dean and director of the state capital program for USC.

"Our curriculum will be built around two ideas," Callahan said. "That adults learn through exercises and simulations, not lectures, and that what people learn at the institute can be used as soon as they get back to work the next Monday."

USC and CSUS faculty members, as well as current and former state lawmakers, will be among the teachers at the institute, Callahan said.

Hodson, a former legislative staffer whose center places graduate fellows in the state Assembly, Senate, executive and judicial branches every year, said professional development for legislative staff members is especially critical in states like California where term limits have churned most experienced lawmakers out of office.

"Term limits brought not only a turnover in members, but a serious turnover on the staff side," he said. "In the old days, it might have taken someone an entire career to move into a chief-of-staff position. But now, people are moving into these positions very fast."

Though Hodson said the institute will tap into people and resources at the Capitol, he said the program will not be California-centric.

One senior staff member at the Capitol predicts the program will be a hit here.

"Absolutely," said Kathy Dresslar, chief of staff for Assemblyman Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento. "NCSL is a respected organization and having their institute close by will make it much easier for people who work in the Capitol to take advantage of."