Mr. Gallegly Goes to Washington : The Ex-Mayor of Simi Valley Graduates to Congress and Finds Himself Back in School

How shall you act the natural man in this invented city, neither Rome nor home?

--INSCRIPTION ON A WASHINGTON,D.C., SIDEWALK

EVERY TWO YEARS, 99 times over, men and women have come on foot or on horseback, in trains or in jets, to convene a Congress and to govern their fellow citizens. Now, on a wintry night in December, Elton Gallegly arrives in the capital by coach class of a DC-10 and assumes his place in the ritual.

A real-estate broker and antique dealer who has just graduated to congressman from his last job, mayor of Simi Valley, he comes to Washington to sit in the 100th Congress. Voters in the comfortable ranch-house suburbs along the northwestern knurl of the Los Angeles megalopolis picked him by a margin of greater than 2 to 1 over his Democratic opponent in the November election. He takes the place of a fellow Republican, Bobbi Fiedler of Northridge.

At Dulles International Airport in the Virginia countryside, Gallegly searches for his luggage just as the other passengers search for theirs. And he muses on his arrival: “Given the odds of anyone in the country doing this, of having the chance to serve in the Congress, particularly the 100th Congress, it’s really gratifying. But I must tell you the reality of it hasn’t sunk in.”

To help that along, the government has a school--an exclusive academy conducted by the House Administration Committee, the Republican and Democratic parties and Harvard University. Gallegly is among 50 freshmen who are to be indoctrinated in Washington’s Byzantine protocols as they are outfitted with offices and with the wherewithal needed to cast their first votes.

On this first visit to Washington since his election to Congress, Gallegly will assemble an office from scratch. He will confront paper work in the stupendous quantities that only government can produce. He will taste the perquisites of high office and suffer the indignities of being lowest on a list of high officeholders. He will discuss issues with some of the finest minds of academia and some of the most skillful lobbyists. He will be awed by the history of the capital and annoyed by its pompousness.

In the VIP parking area of the airport, a car awaits him, a faded maroon tuna-boat of a station wagon from a discount rental agency. It is driven by Gary Maloney, a Washington consultant and former congressional staffer whom Gallegly has hired, sight unseen, to guide him during these first weeks. With the wind-chill factor near zero, the car’s battery goes dead. The Honorable Elton Gallegly’s first act in Washington is to pop the hood.

“THERE IT WAS all of a sudden! Staring right at me--the dome. The Capitol dome as big as life, sparkling away. . . . I don’t think I’ve ever been so thrilled in my whole life.” Playing another freshman congressman, Jimmy Stewart exclaimed those words in the movie “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.” Elton Gallegly is only slightly less effusive. “It’s something, isn’t it?” he says. “It really makes you feel American.”

When Gallegly saw Washington for the first time, on a 1979 trip involving his duties on the Simi Valley City Council, he rented a car and drove around the Capitol--10 or 12 times. He remembers getting a bit carried away. He called home and gushed about the wonder of the city. “I knew then from the tone of his voice,” recalls his wife, Janice, “we were in trouble.” As profoundly as any of the 27 Democrats and 23 Republicans in the congressional Class of 1987, Gallegly glories in the buildings and traditions and symbols of official Washington. Maybe it’s because he’s a real-estate salesman, and this is the most revered real estate in the republic. Or perhaps, as he will concede, he is still self-conscious about having dropped out of Los Angeles State College and regards his success romantically, with a twinge of the common man’s uneasiness.

So on this icy night, the new congressman from California’s 21st District travels directly from Dulles to the east front of the Capitol. The station wagon settles to a stop in front of the illuminated marble face of the deserted building. Gallegly and Mike Sedell, a former Simi Valley deputy city manager who will be his administrative assistant, approach the steps. “It’s a long way from Simi Valley City Hall,” Sedell says.

Gallegly answers softly: “It’s a long way, Mike.”

They move on, across Independence Avenue to the Cannon House Office Building, one of three office buildings for House members. By the standards of private business, the House offices are plain, institutional, even seedy. But in the 80-year-old, high-ceilinged Cannon building, the aura of governance is strong. The building is closed, but Gallegly bluffs his way past the guard, insisting that he is a congressman-elect. It is here that he hopes to draw an office in the freshman lottery. As the days unfold, the location and size of Gallegly’s office will grow as a concern.

In the vast marbled corridors, Gallegly is delighted to discover offices of familiar figures. “There’s Mo Udall! There’s Leon Panetta!” He decides he wants his name on a brass plaque outside the door. He also wants a gold plastic replica of the California state seal on display.

A roll of new carpet lies in the hall, awaiting installation in an office. He feels it for quality, eyes it for color--”hunter green”--and wrinkles his nose. The building is drafty, and there are bare light bulbs and patched walls. “It may be old and dingy,” he says, “but you can feel the power in here, can’t you?”

“WELCOME TO THE Establishment. This is the part of the country from which the Evening News emanates, and they know it, too.” The advice comes in a memo Maloney has written for Gallegly on congressional etiquette, or how to keep up as a freshman. “Though it may sound strange,” the memo says, “not many congressmen wear vests (their top assistants often do). Ties are important. The tie pattern must be regular and orderly (paisley excepted). Burgundy, red, blue or black backgrounds are OK; yellow may be on the adventurous side.”

Shoes must be black or cordovan. Wing tips are favored. “I guess I’ll be wearing my new brown shoes in California,” Gallegly says, laughing as if to poke fun. But within a week, he will sneak out of a class to replace his well-worn loafers with brand-new black wing tips.

GALLEGLY AND Sedell had begun wending their way through the bureaucratic thicket on the flight from Los Angeles.

The basic burden of a congressional neophyte is that after months of campaigning, he must learn to run an office by someone else’s rules. A freshman congressman is allowed up to 18 full-time and four part-time employees, spread between Washington and his home district. Their combined salaries are not to exceed $406,560. There are hundreds of other rules governing congressional offices and dozens of immediate decisions to be made.

Probationary periods for employees? Six months, Gallegly and Sedell decide. “Actually,” Gallegly observes coldly, “every day is probation. People can be fired at any time without cause.”

Maternity leave? Most congressional offices have maternity-leave policies. Gallegly and Sedell decide to stick with the minority and will consider maternity leave case by case. Cost-of-living pay raises? No, they decide. All raises will be based on merit. Sick leave? Case by case. Smoking? Not in the office, never. A dress code? Of course.

The decisions of Gallegly and other freshmen will affect hundreds of congressional workers whose bosses have lost elections, retired with the 99th Congress, or changed committees. Around the holidays, resumes fill the mail and are anxiously slipped under doors and stuffed in pockets. Gallegly is intrigued by the moxie of one receptionist who has placed over her desk a huge banner reading, “Hire Me!” He is disappointed to find that she is a smoker.

IN WASHINGTON, congressmen are referred to not as congressmen but as members. Are you a member? Are the members all present? Members only. And despite the perks and lordly attention, all but the most senior and select of the 435 members lament their lack of leverage on national policy.

That is especially true of freshmen in the minority party. House Republican Leader Robert H. Michel of Illinois tells the newcomers that the House is no longer run by a few doddering old men: “You’re just as much a part of this show as anyone else.” But other congressmen and Capitol Hill veterans say Gallegly will confront a frustrating day when he finds that only the most junior bureaucrats will return his phone calls, the day he realizes that he doesn’t exactly need a parachute to make a safe landing from his spot in the pecking order.

But Gallegly insists that he can live with his lot and reminds himself that he has two advantages: his resourcefulness (he earns money on vacations by renting a trailer and filling it with antiques to sell upon his return home) and, more important, a safe Republican district.

“So many members from marginal districts come here so scared that they aren’t going to get reelected that they never can focus on the job,” says Bob White, an assistant to Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.). “Because of his (Gallegly’s) district, he can think about being here for a while and look forward to doing things.”

“I constantly hear there is a period, the first year, a freshman spends all of his time getting going,” Gallegly says. “But someday in the future you’re going to have an effect and play a role in what happens in Congress.”

He methodically concentrates on what he needs for the short run--a good committee assignment and extra House gallery passes to accommodate his wife and children and two close friends for his swearing-in Jan. 6. Not exactly a question of war and peace, but maybe that will come later.

Committee selections are a matter of sometimes bruising competition among members, state delegations and caucuses. Gallegly decides to push for a seat on the Armed Services Committee. A freshman cannot aim much higher, particularly one who never served in the military. His rivals for the seat, it develops, are both California Republicans: Ernest L. Konnyu of Saratoga, and Orange County veteran Robert K. Dornan. The choice will be made by secret ballot, according to the preferences of the ranking members of the committee, the Republican leadership and the California GOP delegation. Political debts and secret commitments will come into play.

Gallegly’s strategy is plain: Be cool, quiet and persistent. The loud, impetuous Dornan would be a shoo-in for the seat by virtue of seniority--if he didn’t provoke his colleagues so. Konnyu, a veteran of the California Legislature, also is brassy and outspoken. Gallegly makes the natural move open to him, quietly wooing the key players behind the scenes.

To the task, he brings the enthusiasm and comforting manner of someone who has made money in real estate. He studies to remember everyone’s name and something else personal about them, particularly the names of their pets. “I never had anybody who wasn’t impressed that you remember their pets,” he confides.

He first puts this lobbying technique to the test when he sets to securing extra gallery passes to the swearing-in ceremonies. He seeks out House Doorkeeper James Molloy, a gregarious Boston Irishman whose office is a museum of political memorabilia. Molloy is responsible for distributing the tickets. Their first meeting runs 45 minutes with not a word said about tickets, although both men know it is the matter at hand. But they feel each other out, with Molloy spinning one grand political yarn after the other and Gallegly listening as if he had never heard such spellbinding conversation. He hears about the time Nelson Rockefeller flipped the finger to a heckler and about the arrangements for getting a President and a Speaker of the House and a Pope to the same event. He learns about Boston firemen and Boston politics.

Finally, the session concludes and Molloy escorts the visitor to the door. Molloy turns. Oh yes, about the terrible shortage of these darn tickets to the tiny House visitors gallery. “Members get only two. You need seven? Oh, gee, that will be tough. There are so few seats. Well, hmmm, let me see if there is anything I can do.”

Gallegly follows up with a letter and, later, a gentle reminder when he crosses paths with Molloy. He casually mentions that his kids are apt to be heartsick if they’re left out. He also works on cadging extra tickets from members to whom swearing-in is old hat. Within weeks, Gallegly has obtained 11 passes, and it turns out he only needs six.

His attempt to be seated on the Armed Services Committee is not as successful. Gallegly, gently warned by fellow Republicans that a showdown with Dornan would prove bloody and counterproductive, ceases active campaigning. When assignments are decided, not one of the three Californians gets a seat on the committee. Gallegly turns his eye to the Banking Committee but finds that it has no opening for a freshman Republican from California. The most important panel left is the Interior Committee. Factors working in Gallegly’s favor for the assignment are his coastal district and his support for oil exploration off the California coast. He becomes the third California Republican on the panel and the second from his region, after Rep. Robert J. Lagomarsino of Ojai.

“When the Armed Services thing didn’t work, I had to adjust my thinking, of course,” Gallegly says. “And I can’t think of any better way to adjust my thinking than this. I think I came out very well.”

HIS FIRST CAMPAIGN poster showed Gallegly wearing a block of ice for a hat. “Be a cool head, vote for Elton Gallegly,” it read. That was at Huntington Park High School, before he was elected Boys Forum vice president. Not until years later, in 1979, was he drawn back into campaigning for office, this time for Simi Valley City Council. The next year, he was appointed mayor and, after the post became elective, was returned to office twice. He had become a popular advocate of development and civic vitalization. But few outside of town recognized how determined and ambitious this mayor was becoming.

When Rep. Bobbi Fiedler vacated her 21st District seat to run for the U.S. Senate, it was plain to nearly every expert that Tony Hope, son of comedian Bob Hope, would clear the field of serious contenders. Such blue-ribbon Republicans as former President Gerald R. Ford lent a hand to Hope’s campaign. Gallegly overcame that, running as the local boy who had earned the job versus the outsider. He gathered support from civic organizations and growth advocates, and he got a break when it was revealed that Hope had failed to register to vote for 10 years when he lived in Washington.

But for Gallegly, winning a dark-horse election victory, sweet as it was, was not enough to erase all self-doubt. After a few days in Washington, though, he has sized up his classmates--from the obscure, like himself, to such celebrities as young Joseph P. Kennedy II, a Democrat from Massachusetts, and Republican Fred Grandy of Iowa, who played Gopher on the television series “The Love Boat.” And Gallegly is relieved. “You know,” he says, “the first time I got in local government, I had the same insecurities. How do I rank myself compared to the others? Will I be able to get up to speed in time? These few days have been a real confidence builder. I feel better now than at any time since the election and this process started. Which is not to say I have the world by the tail.”

ALL THE WHILE, there are the classes and briefings of Congressmen’s School, the receptions and parties, caucuses and orientation sessions--all part of learning the agenda of Washington at its most basic:

Office decoration: Congressmen must use their expense allowances if they want to buy plants for offices in their home states, but the U.S. Botanical Service provides them free in Washington.

Letter bombs: Mail is screened, sniffed and X-rayed. But the freshmen are warned that terrorists no doubt have copies of Capitol security manuals.

Advice to Republicans on handling Democrats: If they impress you, tell them. But don’t put it in writing. It may turn up in a campaign mailer someday.

Ceremonial titles: They mean little because there are so many; the freshman class, for example, elects two vice presidents. Gallegly pooh-poohs the significance of such posts but issues a press release when he is elected vice chairman of the California Republican delegation.

Spouses: They have their own classes to attend. Of the three congresswomen’s mates, one husband is a sport and attends, but soon drops out. “It was all ‘wife this’ and ‘wife that,’ ” Janice Gallegly says.

Administrative assistants: They go to classes, too. Their program, Sedell says, “includes a potpourri of services to make constituents love you.” For instance, Mary Smith calls the congressman’s office. While she’s talking, a special computer program is used to check her previous correspondence with the office. Suddenly, as if the voice on the phone is just remembered, she hears: “Say, aren’t you the Mary Smith who wrote us a letter on this subject last week?”

Fund raising: At a meeting with Fiedler, his predecessor, Gallegly is advised to quickly send another fund-raising letter to political action committees. His campaign is still $80,000 in debt. If he dallies, he is warned, the special interests will be out of money and the desire to give.

Ethics: Gallegly is determined to quickly settle the matter of how to keep his realty business in his family. He is chagrined by the hesitant replies of the House Ethics Committee staff. “You say hello to them and they’re stumped for an answer,” he says. He is led to understand that he has little cause for concern unless more than 30% of his annual income is derived from the business. A second question is answered later, and plainly: No, he cannot hire his son as a summer intern.

THE MOST IMPORTANT thing in Washington is identification. It is a town of incurable badge sniffers. It is absolutely necessary to have identification unless you are a President or a television news anchor or a Kennedy. The proper badge brings out the hospitality in Washingtonians. The wrong badge or, worse, no badge at all, turns hosts as territorial as Dobermans.

With a congressman’s colored lapel pin, a whole world opens. Congressmen have a well-developed appreciation for privileges, and have decreed themselves many. In the basement of one building sits a congressional gift-and-stationery store where a 50% retail discount is the policy. No congressional badge, no entry. Congressmen don’t have to wait in government-run cafeterias. And they have their own elevators, their own package-wrapping service and the right to move to the head of the line for the cheapest shoeshine in America: 50 cents, no tipping allowed. They have provided themselves with a medical facility and lifetime health care. Parking? No problem. Members are given a special plate to place on the dashboard, and they park wherever they choose in Washington. But for sheer bravado it’s hard to surpass the traffic-light perk. Gallegly is astounded and slightly embarrassed to find that when he walks in the vicinity of certain intersections near the Capitol, police officers will change a red light to green so he need not wait.

Gallegly and his freshman colleagues also come to town with pockets full of invitations for receptions and dinners. About half are hosted by congressional leaders, the rest by trade associations and lobbying groups. Often, it doesn’t seem to matter which is which, because the leaders frequently invite the lobbyists, and vice versa. Almost always, however, they agree to exclude everyone else, namely the press and public. Even when a panel of working journalists briefs the new congressmen on how the press covers Congress, the session is closed to the press.

AS 1986 DRAWS TO A close, Washington is abuzz with the growing Iran- contras scandal. The newspapers are filled with new developments every day; cabdrivers offer their wisdom. There is an edgy anticipation on the faces in the subterranean tunnels that connect the Capitol to its office buildings. Hearing rooms, usually shut tight for the holiday recess, are mobbed and are bathed in television lights.

Almost all of this activity occurs outside the field of vision of the thoroughly preoccupied freshmen. But, Gallegly remarks at one point, “this would be a great time to be on the Foreign Affairs Committee, wouldn’t it?”

When Secretary of State George P. Shultz, a key figure in the unfolding scandal, addresses the freshmen, he stays away from the subject. “He lobbied for money for the State Department,” Gallegly recalls. For their part, the new congressmen obligingly ask only one general question about the scandal. Likewise, when the freshmen visit the White House and chat with the President, it is mentioned only in the most gentlemanly terms. The President repeats what has become his constant refrain: “Nobody is more interested in getting to the bottom of this than I am.” Gallegly gets his first letter about a pressing international concern--from a group seeking to save kangaroos in Australia.

But most of the matters of policy to be considered come from Boston, where the House Administration Committee and Harvard’s Institute of Politics--in Phase 2 of Congressmen’s School--try to compress national and international issues into six brain-numbing, 14-hour days of instruction. Gallegly is grateful to escape the administrative details of Washington when the troop leaves for Boston by motorcade and Air Force jet.

The freshmen by and large have a conversational grasp of the big issues. On most, they also have fixed opinions. But Harvard offers them an academic perspective. And even more valuable, Gallegly says, is the exposure to the questions and points of view of his colleagues. “One of the things that comes out of this is a better understanding of those who you’re going to have to work with. I think you get as much out of that as the actual programs.”However, early into the 20 classes and seminars on deregulation, the budget, farming, energy, arms control and “the Washington community,” several members complain about the ambitious pace and start cutting classes. Midway through, some sessions are attended by fewer than half the freshmen. “You got to remember,” Gallegly says as he prepares to ditch class to go shopping, “we’ve been going like this for going on three weeks now.”

Harvard takes it badly. Faculty members anonymously but bitingly criticize Rep.-elect Joe Kennedy, whose district encompasses the university. He leads almost half of the members to a Lakers-Celtics game that conflicts with a scheduled speech by Federal Reserve Chairman Paul A. Volcker. Gallegly stays for Volcker but makes it for the last part of the game anyway and then is swept away by limousine to dinner with Kennedy and some of the Celtics.

Gallegly also visits the home of Joe’s mother, Ethel, and attends a tour and private dinner at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, the lonely citadel memorializing the young Kennedy’s uncle and his father, Robert F. Kennedy. “Janice and I, we’ve viewed the Kennedy family on the outside--every American has,” Gallegly says. “And while our philosophic differences are many, they were extremely warm in bringing us inside, to see the dog on the chair and the paint chipping here and there.”

FOR WEEKS, THE congressmen-elect have conducted their work out of tiny hallway cubicles as they await the big office drawing. When it finally arrives, Gallegly is as nervous as if it were the lottery Big Spin.

Members draw numbers out of a box and then choose from the vacant offices. Only three of the spacious Cannon building offices remain. Those with good to middle-of-the-pack numbers won’t get the choice locations but at least are assured of enough offices to keep their staff together. The rest will be stuffed into the smallest rooms of the Longworth House Office Building, the least desirable of the House office complexes, and they will have to shunt some staffers off to annex space elsewhere. The very worst rooms are on the top floor (long waits for elevators) and near the cafeteria (cockroaches).

Forty-six freshmen are drawing for offices. Four others already have theirs, either because they have seniority from previous service or because they were sworn in early to fill a vacant seat. Gallegly sticks his hand in the box: No. 41. His groan is involuntary and his face turns waxy. He had visions of a good view, high ceilings, polished brass--a grand entrance for the first congressmen from Simi Valley.

Freshman Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) will conduct his business from a small room on the ground floor of Longworth, atop the basement bakery.

ON JAN. 6, GALLEGLY takes a front-row seat in the crammed House chamber for the swearing-in of the 100th Congress. Even before he takes the oath, he casts his first vote, for Speaker. To no one’s surprise, Democrat Jim Wright of Texas defeats Republican leader Robert H. Michel of Illinois in party-line balloting.

During the ceremony, Gallegly searches the gallery for his family. Their seats are scattered. Janice and their daughter, Shannon, 17, are in the back; Gallegly can’t see his eldest son, Shawn, 20. Only youngest son, Kevin, 17, is right up front.

“It really seemed important to me to realize how proud he was. I could look up there and see the expression on his face,” Gallegly says. “For me, it was like the day you get married or the birth of a child. And that’s not to diminish either of those important events.”

Congress quickly takes its toll on the Gallegly family. His children had walked precincts and posted signs to help put Gallegly here. But this day, with their father at meetings and caucuses and the ceremony, they get to see him for about 30 seconds in passing. “Maybe it was a minute at the most. And that was a disappointment to me,” he says.

Three days later, Gallegly makes his first speech before the chamber. Although elected as a pro-Reagan, anti-spending Republican, his finds himself supporting an $18-billion measure to renew the Clean Water Act --a bill the President vetoed after the 99th Congress left town. Gallegly lobbies on behalf of the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District, which is in danger of losing a grant for a sewage-treatment plant because, as he explains in his speech, “the total amount of expected sludge generation has not been realized.”

Hardly a glamorous topic, but, Gallegly says, it was the first item to cross his desk “and we dealt with it.”

The Washington reality that eluded him when he arrived at Dulles Airport has begun to take hold.

“The hardest thing is going to be getting used to politics as a job,” Gallegly says after his first week. “I’ve been involved for eight years in local government. But it hasn’t been like this.

“I have made the first career change of my life. Before, I was in business for myself and I was my own boss. I didn’t have that many people I answered to. Now, I have 550,000 people I answer to every day. Right now, they’ve put a stack of things here in front of me to do.”