Capitol Gains

WASHINGTON —  One is a smooth former judge, the other a self-described “recovering nerd.” One meticulously festooned his new congressional office with near-museum quality political memorabilia. The other hasn’t had time for any decorating.

One is freshman Republican Congressman James Rogan and the other is freshman Democrat Brad Sherman, the Valley’s two newcomers to Congress, who were sworn in at the Capitol Tuesday along with the rest of the 105th Congress on a crisp, clear winter day.

What they have in common is a sense of beginning a new chapter of their public lives.

“I’m going to enjoy this one day at a time,” said Rogan, “because I don’t know how long I’ll be here.”

“Everyone thinks I should be on cloud nine,” Sherman admitted. “But this is kind of daunting.”

It became official about 2:40 p.m. when embattled Speaker Newt Gingrich swore in members of the new Congress, including 73 freshmen, massed in the well of the House.

The lawmakers, some accompanied by rambunctious children, raised their right hands and swore to uphold and support the Constitution.

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For Rogan, it couldn’t come too soon.

“Newt gave a great speech but it didn’t keep my kids entertained,” he said, referring to his twin 4-year-old daughters, Claire and Dana. “It was nice to get out of there and get some fresh air.”

Rogan, a former majority leader in the state Assembly, has been through such ceremonies before.

“But this is truly a humbling experience. Standing in the House and taking the oath is something few get the privilege to do,” he said, safely back in his office, his identically clad daughters squirming benignly in his lap.

He has already decided to move his family East instead of leaving them in California.

“I already made that mistake in Sacramento,” Rogan recalled. “It’s totally impractical to have small children and leave them in the district. You never see them, unless you think growing up without a father is a good thing.”

Rogan will rent a house in Alexandria, across the Potomac in northern Virginia, for the time being and maybe buy a place later on.

“We can’t afford two mortgages,” Rogan said.

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Sherman, who is single, is staying in the Capitol Hilton for a few nights, along with some family members and girlfriend Patty Boyle, who works for the Lawndale School District.

“A travel agent friend of mine got us a $79-a-night rate,” Sherman said approvingly. But he will soon improve on that. “My mother’s second cousin has a nice guest room.”

“Since my term on the Board of Equalization didn’t expire until Jan. 2, I haven’t had much time to look for places.”

Nor has he devoted any time to sprucing up his office. A couple of drab prints adorn the walls of his corner suite in the Longworth Office Building. The bookshelves hold nothing but a battered dictionary and some other stray reference works.

But in terms of space and location, Sherman’s office is palatial.

Sherman won the freshman lottery and had his pick of the better offices. In the normal course of events, first-term members find themselves in the dingiest, darkest, least delightful quarters. As with everything else in Washington, one must accrue good office space--like power--through seniority.

Proudly showing off his sunny, relatively spacious quarters, Sherman asks, “You wouldn’t know this was a freshman’s office, would you?”

“It may not have a Capitol view,” Sherman noted as he went to look out the window, “but it doesn’t look over a parking lot.”

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Rogan wound up in the freshman ghetto--the notorious fifth floor of the Cannon Office building, the oldest of the three office complexes for House members.

“I wanted to be here,” Rogan explained. “It has the tall ceilings and has the right ‘look.’ ”

Who cares if he has one of the longest hikes to the House floor to vote or not all the elevators run to the fifth floor? “I need to lose a few pounds, and those 18 stairs mean I can have a milkshake today,” Rogan quipped. “Anyway, this was one of LBJ’s former offices. They ought to put in a plaque.”

Speaking of plaques, Rogan spent nearly all day Monday hanging up his vast collection of political memorabilia. Posters, photos, knickknacks, buttons, fliers--Rogan had all the stuff from his Sacramento office boxed up, then he and a friend rented a truck and drove it across country.

“We left last Saturday at 6 p.m. and got here at 2 p.m.--about 56 hours,” Rogan said. “But you know those rent-a-trucks. Can’t get them to go faster than 45 mph.”

When he confronted the rental housing office manager after 2 1/2 days on the road without shaving, without a change of clothes, she scoffed when he put down “U.S. congressman” under occupation.

She said, “ ‘Do you want to live in this place or don’t you, wise guy?’ ” Rogan recalled, chuckling.

After a marathon of hammering in picture hooks, the newcomer Rogan’s inner sanctum rivals those of wizened committee chairmen for accumulated wall effluvia.

(His favorite artifact?: an autographed photo from Bess and Harry Truman, who once helped Rogan with a high school term paper--on Truman.)

*

“I hate it when he calls himself ‘a recovering nerd,’ ” said Lane Sherman, his mother. “I always knew he would be a great officeholder, but I never thought he would be a great candidate.”

“He was quite serious as a youngster,” Mom recalled. “Then he started reading MAD Magazine and telling political jokes. He and his friends would kid around with this intellectual humor. He’s not a raconteur or a joke-teller, but he has a lot of one-liners.”

He likes to say that he worked himself up to be average, she said.

But his girlfriend knows better.

“He’s an incredibly hard worker,” Boyle said. “He wants everything to go well, and I wasn’t particularly surprised when he said he was running for Congress.”

But let the 42-year-old CPA and Harvard Law School graduate put his public life in typically self-deprecating perspective.

“After practicing law, my friends said I could even lower my public esteem by running for the Board of Equalization. Then I could be a politician and a tax collector at the same time. Then Tony Beilenson [the retired Democrat whose House seat Sherman won] said I could be in a big room presided over by Newt Gingrich and lower it even further.”

“I hope you know I’m being facetious,” Sherman added.