Due to his father's service in the U.S. Marine Corps, the family moved to Arkansas, then back to Connecticut and afterwards to Rhode Island before finally settling in Plattsburgh, New York, where he graduated high school.

Raised as an Episcopalian and Methodist, he served as president of its Alpha Chi Rho chapter and led a campaign to end what was then the fraternity's official policy of restricting membership to Christians.

After being driven out of Mississippi by threats, he joined the Chatham County Crusade for Voters in Savannah, Georgia, where he was arrested, without a proper warrant, for disturbing the peace and jailed for six weeks.

[3] He was ultimately released by a local judge after a prominent Savannah physician offered his property as bond in exchange for Tuttle's agreement to leave the county.

In a 1989 editorial endorsing his first re-election bid, The Los Angeles Times stated: Tuttle seems to us the kind of public servant you would like to see in every government office.

[7] He had briefly considered returning to elected office in 2009 by running for the open Los Angeles City Council District 5 seat to replace the retiring Jack Weiss, but threw his support to Ron Galperin instead.

[8] Tuttle also served as a director of the Los Angeles West Chamber of Commerce[7] and an interviewee of the Fellows Program at Coro of Southern California.

[citation needed] A former associate dean of student activities at UCLA, Tuttle served for eight years as an elected member of the Los Angeles Community College Board of Trustees.

After completing the statutory maximum of four terms as city controller, he returned to UCLA as executive director of the Dashew International Center for Student and Scholars, serving in that capacity until 2006.

In these positions, he has stressed the importance of creating a strong democratic tradition at UCLA, which, in his words, is "the best large public university in a major city.

A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Texas at Austin and former Peace Corps volunteer in the Philippines, she would later become campaign coordinator and the first administrative assistant of Howard Berman while he was a member of the California State Assembly, prior to his election to the U.S. Congress.