Legislators Get Calls to Serve the People : Favors: Tourists ask their congressmen for VIP treatment and hard-to-find White House tour tickets.

The constituent on the line was livid: He wanted his White House tour tickets and he wanted them now .

What he didn’t want were those same lame excuses--that each congressman is allotted only a handful of White House tickets each month. And that they go quickly on a first-come, first-served basis.

“He was calling us every name in the book,” recalled the chief of staff for one San Fernando Valley congressman. “He insisted we were withholding his tickets because he had written the congressman disagreeing on his stands and that this was our form of retribution.

“He threatened to go to the media and blow the cover off our scam. He said, ‘This guy’s a congressman. He can call the President and get what he wants. Now give me the tickets or I’ll do what I have to do.’ It was a conversation straight out of the ‘Twilight Zone.’ ”

It’s summertime in Washington, when tourists throughout Southern California flock to the nation’s capital, eager to climb the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, visit the Supreme Court, maybe enjoy an afternoon at the Smithsonian.

Constituents by the hundreds approach their congressmen in search of VIP tickets, hoping to avoid those aggravating long lines at the district’s most popular sights, including the House and Senate galleries, the White House and FBI offices.

Between June and August, politicians are deluged with requests that run the gamut from the courteous to the outrageous to the downright funny.

It’s the time when the word congressman is spelled concierge .

Beginning each January, the calls and letters come: from constituents who want those hard-to-get White House tickets--for the next day. Or the Valley plumber seeking a presidential audience to offer his solutions on health care. Or the voter who wanted tickets to the tour beneath the Lincoln Memorial--a public loop that doesn’t even exist.

Then there’s the man who insisted that the Capitol is connected to nearby hotels by a labyrinth of tunnels used by politicians for lunchtime trysts with their mistresses. He wanted one local congressman to book him into one of those hotels.

Some callers have done their homework. Others couldn’t distinguish the Capitol building from the Washington Monument. Still others are like scenery sponges: They want it all, like the busload of Valley grandmothers who wanted tickets to everything there is to see.

By far, the hottest tickets are for the White House tour. Congressional staffs operate a computer system to trade the tickets like baseball cards, trying to fill the demand.

Still, there are never enough to go around.

“Those tickets make us more enemies than they do friends,” said one aide. “Because we end up turning away far more people than we can help.”

The huge demand for tickets brings up a sticky issue for many congressmen and their staffs: Just why were they sent to Washington, anyway? To make laws and lead the nation? Or to book constituents’ reservations at the local Holiday Inn?

Many congressmen use junior staffers to coordinate requests from visiting constituents. The job includes answering letters, securing tickets when possible, mailing brochures and arranging audiences with the representative.

Staffers see such gestures as a service, not an inalienable public right. The image many voters have of their congressman’s Washington office, aides say, is a full-service gas station where staffers are expected to not only check the oil, but wash the windshield.

“A lot of people think their congressman is there to help make their vacations a better time. They think, ‘By golly, I helped put him in office and he owes me one now,’ ” said one Capitol staffer. “Thank God a relative few actually make ticket requests because, considering the total number of constituents back home, not many know they can do it.

“And I’d get on my hands and knees to beg you not to tell them. It’s a terrible burden to us. It takes time and taxpayer dollars. We’re not paid to be travel agents.”

President Franklin Roosevelt managed his New Deal during the Great Depression with a staff of only four, historians tell us. Today, there are 3,000 presidential aides. Capitol Hill employs an army of 30,000 staffers to assist 435 representatives and 100 senators--not counting aides in politicians’ districts.

Eventually, each fields a request from one of the folks back home. Each year, depending on the size of the district, each of the five San Fernando Valley-area congressmen hears from 1,000 or more constituents, especially during the summer months.

Seeing the public relations value of such requests, congressmen often personally return calls to letter-writers and meet with groups for photo sessions on the steps of the Capitol.

Many see such occasions as a break from Washington’s power games. Often, on the Capitol steps, several representatives can be found addressing groups of visitors, explaining the lawmaking process--their voices trained like high-priced tour guides.

“I’d rather do this than the other things I have to do,” Rep. Anthony Beilenson (D-Woodland Hills) said after speaking with 53 Valley-area teen-agers on tour--his shirt sleeves rolled up, his suit jacket draped over his arm on a steamy July morning.

“For good reasons and bad, people have less trust in government today. It’s reassuring for them to see their congressman as a rational and caring human being, even if they disagree with his stands.”

During Beilenson’s speech, the junior high schoolers from Valley Student Tours fidgeted and fanned themselves with their guidebooks. They represented the diversity of Southern California: Asians, blacks, Latinos and surfer look-alikes wearing earrings and braces, Wayfarer shades, French berets and high-top sneakers.

While some didn’t know the name of their local congressman, their questions were as insightful as those at presidential press conferences: What was your vote on the Brady gun-control bill? What’s the hardest decision you’ve ever had to make? If you cast 10 votes a day, how can you possibly research them all?

Alison Rosenberg was confounded by her first glimpse of a Washington insider. Here was someone comfortable with power, yet smiling, easygoing and down to earth.

“He’s obviously a really influential person,” she said. “But he was really nice. He reminded me of my dad.”

Added Michael Barrett of Sherman Oaks: “He’s a busy man, so it’s nice he took time to talk to us. He just talked too long.”

Washington, of course, is a city of connections. The best touring opportunities go to people with a long-lost uncle who’s the night janitor at FBI headquarters. Or, on the other hand, those who can write an engaging letter to their congressman.

That’s what Lisa Henley did. The fifth-grade teacher at Skyblue Mesa Elementary School in Canyon Country wrote to Rep. Howard (Buck) McKeon (R-Santa Clarita) asking for 50 tickets to the White House for her students’ trip last month.

And-- voila! --she got them.

“Now, that’s service,” she said. “I had to pinch myself to believe it was really happening.”

McKeon even met with her students on the Capitol steps. “He took the time,” Henley said. “The year before we met with Sen. (Barbara) Boxer, who dismissed us as fast as lightning. She said, ‘Study hard,’ and then she was gone.

“We elect our politicians to pass laws but also to take care of constituents when they visit Washington, to represent us as voters, whatever that means. It meant a lot to the kids. One boy said he really had fun--that he was going to miss his memories.”

Jason Doolittle called his congressman back in March requesting White House tickets for a visit he and his wife would be making on the Fourth of July, then followed up with a letter in April. When he didn’t hear back, he dropped by Beilenson’s office when he got to Washington. Luckily, he got some tickets.

The Reseda resident has mixed emotions about the experience.

“They need somebody to be responsible for constituent needs. I don’t expect the congressman to do it--he’s got enough to do already,” he said. “But if the White House tour tickets go so fast, they ought to do something about it, like create more tours.

“These people in Washington apparently don’t realize how important a visit like that is for people back home.”

Some staffers do.

“People will call up and say, ‘I’m a World War II veteran and I’ve never asked for anything in my life, but can I have two tickets for the White House tour this afternoon?’ ” recalled Eric Nasarenko, a Beilenson staffer.

“What do you say to something like that, when you just don’t have the tickets? It’s hard. These people have served their country. It might be their first time in Washington. So you do what you can for them. You go the extra mile.”

David Jorgenson, chief of staff for Rep. Carlos J. Moorhead (R-Glendale), hasn’t forgotten what it was like to see Washington for the first time. It’s an image he keeps in mind when constituents call.

“You see tourists in this city walking and gawking in aimless awe and you realize that if these were cars, we’d have accidents,” he said. “I just wish the product in Washington was as good as its edifices. We try to make that happen.”