4 Freshmen Find Congress a Bit Like College : Government: The Southeast area’s new representatives are learning their way around the Capitol and forging alliances on issues of common interest. Retaining the Long Beach Naval Shipyard is high on everyone’s agenda.

It didn’t take long for the four new members of Congress from Los Angeles County’s Southeast area to find out that being a freshman in the House of Representatives is kind of like being a freshman in college--it’s bewildering, a little bit scary, and the upperclassmen get the best of everything.

Rep. Steve Horn (R-Long Beach) ended up with a converted storage room as an office. Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-South Gate) got lost on her way to the House floor and found herself wandering around a basement. And, on his first day on the job, Rep. Ed Royce (R-Fullerton) said he “saw the Constitution shredded before my eyes” when House Speaker Thomas S. Foley (D-Wash.) made a rules change that Republicans say is unconstitutional.

“I’m one of the few freshmen whose office doesn’t overlook a concrete slab or a bed of gravel,” Rep. Walter R. Tucker III (D-Compton) joked. “But you know, many of us new members are not only making a scholastic or professional jump, we are making a personal jump in life. It is like college--a whole different world. That’s what this is like.”

The four were sworn in Jan. 5 and will serve for the next two years alongside fellow Southeast-area Rep. Esteban E. Torres (D-Pico Rivera), who was elected to his sixth term in November.

The four new representatives are as diverse as the communities they represent. Horn is a moderate Republican political science professor; Roybal-Allard is a former Assemblywoman and a liberal. Royce is a conservative Republican and former state senator; Tucker, the former mayor of Compton, is a political progressive who expresses an eagerness for change.

But the four--along with Torres--insist they will be a united, dynamic team committed to avoiding partisan bickering in order to promote the welfare of the Southeast area.

“We have to work together as a bloc,” said Roybal-Allard. “It’s going to be impossible for any one person to be able to push things through the system. We each sit on specific committees where the others do not and we will have to help each other in a team effort. What happens in one city directly impacts the others. We can’t forget that.”

The five agree that one of the first priorities for the Southeast area is to ensure that the Long Beach Naval Shipyard and the 4,100 people it employs be kept safe from the congressional budget ax. They plan to request that at least one of them be included on the commission that is scheduled to convene this spring to decide whether the shipyard will stay open.

Other pressing issues include funding of the Alameda transportation corridor--which is designed to improve the flow of rail and truck traffic from the Long Beach and Los Angeles ports--and help for the troubled aerospace industry, including economic conversion and job retraining.

Royce, Tucker, Horn, Roybal-Allard and Torres are quick to point out that they will be able to work on these issues because they sit on relevant committees. Horn and Tucker are on the Public Works and Transportation Committee, which, under the Clinton Administration, is expected to become one of the most powerful committees in the House, responsible for millions of dollars’ worth of contracts. Tucker also sits on the Small Business Committee with Roybal-Allard, who additionally is a member of the banking and finance committee. Royce sits on Science, Space and Technology, a key committee for the Southeast area, where the aerospace industry has been such a fundamental part of the economy.

But the most powerful position of all went to Torres, who after 10 years on banking and finance won a seat on the Appropriations Committee, the controller of the purse strings of the House.

“It’s a plum committee,” Torres acknowledged. “I will use my position on it as leverage (to get the other area congressional members) to work with me. It’s a way we can all work together.”

Since four of the five lack seniority, it’s unclear just how much influence they will have. They argue that it could be considerable.

“More than a quarter (of the House’s 435 members) are freshmen, so we have enormous influence here,’ said Royce, whose district includes both Southeast and Orange County cities. “We have the ability to change the institution if we stick together and push for change.”

Tucker said that the Southeast delegation is a particularly savvy group. Tucker was endorsed by Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) and is an acquaintance of Rep. Julian Dixon (D-Los Angeles), both prominent members of the Congressional Black Caucus. Royce and Roybal-Allard were both state legislators, and Roybal-Allard is the daughter of retired Rep. Edward Roybal (D-Los Angeles) And then there is Horn, a noted congressional scholar who, in a sense, has been preparing himself for his new job since he served as a legislative aide to a U.S. senator 30 years ago.

As Tucker puts it, “Steve knows everyone. So, I think we are mature beyond our status.”

In the crazy jumble of days since November’s election, the new representatives have been jetting back and forth across the country, attending orientations, hiring staff, wrapping up business here and finding places to live in the Washington area.

Horn and his wife, Nini, are leasing a one-bedroom apartment seven blocks from the Capitol. Royce and his wife, Marie, have rented a home in Maryland and are selling their Anaheim home. Roybal-Allard and her husband, Edward, have already purchased her father’s home four blocks from the Capitol. Tucker and his wife, Robin, are building a home in Alexandria, Va.

“We’ve definitely hit the ground running,” Roybal-Allard said. “There is not time at all to sit back and plan an agenda for the year. We’re moving furniture into the office; there are computers and typewriters all over the place. At the same time, people are calling, delivering invitations. There are people who want you to sponsor bills you haven’t even read yet. It has just been crazy.”

But, they say, the frenzy and dislocation all became worth it a week and a half ago when, on an unusually sunny winter day, they were officially sworn in as members of the 103rd Congress. Even the usually poker-faced Horn admitted getting a tear in his eye.

“When I was sitting there waiting to take the oath, I looked around the chamber and I thought of Daniel Webster, who stood in the old House, and of Henry Clay, who was elected Speaker of the House by his colleagues,” Horn recalled. “When you think about those people, you hope you can do half as well or a fourth as well.”

U.S. Representatives in the Southeast Area

Lucille Roybal-Allard

Democrat, first term

District: 33rd (Bell, Bell Gardens, Commerce, Cudahy, Florence, Huntington Park, Maywood, South Gate, Vernon, Walnut Park and parts of Downey, Los Angeles and East Los Angeles)

Committees: Banking and Finance; Small Business; Select Committee on Aging

Where to reach: 255 E. Temple St., No. 1860, Los Angeles 90012. Phone: (213) 894-4870

Steve Horn

Republican, first term

District: 38th (Bellflower, Downey, Lakewood, Paramount, Signal Hill, most of Long Beach and parts of Compton, Norwalk, San Pedro and South Gate)

Committees: Public Works and Transportation; Government Operations

Where to reach: 4010 Watson Plaza Drive, Suite 160, Lakewood 90712. Phone: (310) 425-1336.

Ed Royce

Republican, first term

District: 39th (Artesia, Cerritos, Hawaiian Gardens, La Habra Heights, parts of Hacienda Heights, La Mirada, Long Beach and several Orange County cities)

Committees: Foreign Affairs; Science, Space and Technology

Where to reach: 305 N. Harbor Blvd., Suite 300, Fullerton 92632. Phone: (310) 809-1541.

Esteban E. Torres

Democrat, sixth term

District: 34th (Montebello, Norwalk, Pico Rivera, Santa Fe Springs, Whittier and parts of Commerce, East Los Angeles, Hacienda Heights, Industry, La Habra Heights, La Mirada, La Puente, Rosemead, San Gabriel, Valinda and West Covina)

Committee: Appropriations

Where to reach: 8819 Whittier Blvd., Suite 101, Pico Rivera 90660. Phone: (310) 695-0702

Walter R. Tucker III

Democrat, first term

District: 37th (Carson, Lynwood, Willowbrook, Wilmington, most of Compton and parts of Athens, Long Beach, Los Angeles and Paramount)

Committees: Public Works and Transportation; Small Business

Where to reach: 419 Cannon House Office Building, Washington, D.C. 20515. Phone: (202) 225-7924