By Carl Weiser
Enquirer Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON - Mike Turner, newly elected congressman for Ohio's 3rd District, learned some important lessons this past week:

Representative-elect Mike Turner, R-Ohio, spends time on Capitol Hill during a break from freshman orientation with his wife Lori and daughters Jessica, 10, and Carolyn, 8, Thursday. (Gannett News Service/Heather Martin Morrissey) | ZOOM |

Don't buy a fixer-upper in Washington. You won't have time to work on it.

Members don't get a desk on the House floor. Just a chair.

It's better to represent the Ohio's 3rd District than South Dakota.

Mr. Turner, the former mayor of Dayton, spent this past week at freshman orientation with the 53 other Washington newcomers who will take their seats in the next Congress starting Jan. 7.

"It definitely feels like being a freshman in college," said Mr. Turner, who will represent Clinton, Highland, northern Warren County and Dayton. "You don't know the campus very well. You don't know the staff."

The 42-year-old Republican is no Washington neophyte though: As mayor and candidate, he has been to Washington more than a dozen times, spent time in congressional offices, hobnobbed with President Bush and even filmed a campaign commercial at the White House.

He came in two days early for the orientation session, driving out Nov. 8 with his wife, Lori, a Mount Airy native, and daughters, Jessica, 10, and Carolyn, 8. He was one of the few to bring his whole family. It meant that he would veer from learning about the House committee system to fending off pleas to buy the new Star Wars: Episode II DVD.

Freshman orientation is a once-every-two-years rite for the incoming class. Democrats and Republicans pose for a class photo together and go to school together, learning how to set up a congressional office, how to stay out of ethical trouble and about Congress' history.

Each party's office has sessions on how to get re-elected, even though many of these members just won their seats two weeks ago. Some hadn't won yet: Two Coloradoans who claim victory in the same congressional district attended the orientation while state officials figure out who won.

Days start around 7 a.m. and go to 11 p.m., a preview of a House member's day when Congress is in session.

"This is a quick grind for a member who just came off the campaign trail. You see a lot of weary faces by the end of the day," Mr. Turner said. He beat Democrat Rick Carne, a longtime aide to former Rep. Tony Hall, the Democrat who had held the 3rd District seat until he left for a U.N. post earlier this year.

Not the same program

This year's orientation was a bit different from previous years. It had a special emphasis on how to keep family life intact.

Mr. Turner, like most House members, will leave his family back in the district, spending the week in Washington. That can stress any family.

"E-mailing is real important," said Lori Turner, who runs a Dayton marketing company. "And make sure you have good relations with the scheduler." (The two celebrated their 15th wedding anniversary Thursday, playing hooky from a congressional reception to go to an opera at the Kennedy Center.)

Every new member was given a Blackberry - a wireless e-mail device - although Mr. Turner left his in his hotel room for most of the week.

And because of last year's terrorist and anthrax attacks, the orientation had a special session on security.

"Two years ago when the new members came in, we would have said simply: `Your mail is delivered to your offices. You open it up. And you respond to your constituents,' " said Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, who ran the orientation program. "This year we have to tell them that ... there is a delay, how the mail has to be irradiated in Bridgeport, N.J."

One session featured more senior members talking about what they wished they had been told. That's where one member mentioned that he bought a house to fix up on Capitol Hill.

"He has yet to move in," Mr. Turner said. He will rent an apartment.

With the other freshmen, Mr. Turner and his wife spent an afternoon at the White House with President Bush and an evening on the House floor with Vice President Dick Cheney. It was Mr. Turner's first visit to the House floor.

"It was exciting. It was a place I had never been but worked a great deal to get to," he said. "I was surprised there weren't more desks." With 435 members, it has room only for movie-theater style seating. The 100 senators, on the other side of the Capitol, do get desks.

And Mr. and Mrs. Turner, who attended a spouse orientation, said they liked that Democrats and Republicans were put together, from all regions - newly-elected black women from the South, Hispanic men from Arizona, and Florida's famous former secretary of state-turned congresswoman, Katherine Harris.

"We've met people from all over the country. You do get a sense of the representative form of government," she said.

Instant Ohio friends

Mr. Turner said he had hit it off with Rep. Bill Janklow, the former governor of South Dakota who now will be that state's only House member. Mr. Janklow represents 66 counties to Mr. Turner's four, but had no fellow South Dakotans to hang out with, and the state's two senators happen to be Democrats.

Meanwhile, Mr. Turner found fellow Ohioans everywhere. The state's 11 Republican House members organized a breakfast for him. Another Ohio freshman, Democrat Tim Ryan of Niles, was in orientation with him. St. Clairesville's Mr. Ney, by virtue of his chairmanship of the House Administration Committee, ran the orientation. The Ohio Republicans pledged to give him advice on which office to select this week.

To his surprise, the freshmen even got to vote in House GOP leadership elections, which gave Mr. Turner a chance to elect Columbus-area congresswoman Deborah Pryce as conference chairman, the highest-ranking GOP woman in congressional history.

"I've been very impressed with how respected and active the Ohio delegation is," Mr. Turner said. South Dakota's Mr. Janklow "has no fellow members. I can count on the senior members from Ohio for advice."

Because Dayton is home to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Mr. Turner is hoping for a seat on the House Armed Services Committee. He has a letter from House Speaker Dennis Hastert promising him such a seat.

As his daughters climbed trees on the Capitol's lawn and marveled at Washington's ever-present protesters, Mr. Turner reflected on how much he needed to learn about being a congressman.

Was he ready?

"I will be by January," he said.