Allen Not Letting Grass Grow Underfoot in Reelection Effort

Republican Assemblywoman Doris Allen glanced down and fumbled with papers she was carrying, preparing herself last week for another election-year visit with constituents.

“Let’s see. He’s Otis, she’s Page,” Allen mumbled as she headed toward the doorbell of a neat home near the border of Westminster and Huntington Beach.

“Hello. Are you Mrs. Page?” Allen asked the woman who answered the door.

No, she wasn’t. Nor was the timid Asian woman, who now lived at the house where Otis and Page once were registered to vote, able to communicate well in English.

Allen smiled, handed the woman a note pad that said “Re-elect Assemblywoman Doris Allen” and told her to call if she had “any problem with government.” Allen also urged the woman to register to vote before her next campaign two years from now.

Some you win. Some you hope for later.

Campaigning for a third term in the Assembly, Allen was practicing a style of politics last week that has helped to launch the careers of former U.S. Rep. Richard Hanna, state Controller Ken Cory and state Sen. Paul B. Carpenter--all Democrats--in the same Orange County district that Allen now represents.

The 71st Assembly District--which includes Buena Park, Cypress, La Palma, Los Alamitos and parts of Anaheim, Westminster and Garden Grove--had a strong Democratic tradition before Allen, campaigning door-to-door, defeated former Assemblyman Chet Wray in 1982, on her third try.

Since then, a Democratic redistricting plan that altered her district’s borders and an aggressive Republican voter registration drive this year have pushed the number of GOP voters to 47.2%, compared with 43.4% registered Democrats as of this week. Those numbers come very close to making the district what political professionals call a “safe Republican district.”

Allen, who won every precinct in the district two years ago when she trounced former Cypress Mayor John Kanel, 66.8% to 33.2%, says she’ll stand on her record this year--all of it. And she says she resents her opponent’s frequent suggestion that she’s been a one-issue legislator.

Opponent’s Criticism

Democratic challenger Mark Rosen often criticizes Allen’s crusade to improve the management and tax-collection practices of the state Department of Fish and Game, noting that “there aren’t any fisheries” in the inland, suburban district she represents.

“For the life of me, I don’t know how she got so wrapped up in that,” Rosen says.

But Allen, who is vice chair of the Assembly Water, Parks and Wildlife Committee, says she gets a positive response when she mentions during her campaign stops that she struck out against mismanagement by state fish and game officials. That, she says, is because many of her constituents hunt and fish, and most are fiscal conservatives who dislike government inefficiency anywhere.

Allen, a former school board member and anti-busing activist, says she is equally proud of other accomplishments in the Legislature. She points to a measure she authored that allows schoolchildren to attend classes in the areas where their parents work, to legislation intended to implement court-ordered equalization of funds available to school districts throughout the state and even her unsuccessful effort to secure more urban-impact aid for the Garden Grove School District. She also pushed through the state’s first law requiring teen-age motorcyclists to take safety classes.

‘Little Things’

She also mentions “little things,” like securing state funds for a city park on the abandoned Marie Hare School site in Garden Grove, which, she points out, mean a lot to local residents.

“I’ve been involved in a lot more than just fish and game,” she said.

Allen has a reputation among her colleagues for being tenacious and persistent--and for a tendency toward excessive detail in her presentations. She has been known to flood other legislative offices with reams of supporting documents when she is pushing legislation or causes.

She is the first to admit that she has never been part of the inner circle in Sacramento. That, she says, is partly because she is independent and partly because she is a woman.

She is extremely confident about her reelection bid.

Except in Buena Park, where she has run extremely strong races in the past, Allen has seen little evidence that Rosen has been actively campaigning door-to-door, she says.

Challenger’s Efforts

Rosen, who says he has all but given up his law practice for the final weeks of the campaign, says he has walked between 20 and 30 of the 323 precincts in the district. Volunteer workers have walked door-to-door in 30 or 40 others, he says. Rosen says he is concentrating his personal effort in areas where Republican registration and voting tendencies have been especially strong.

“It is very difficult to beat an incumbent, and it is going to take more of an effort than he is putting forward,” Allen said last week. “ . . . We are monitoring his campaign closely.”

So far, Allen concedes, she has done relatively little campaigning herself. Because this year’s legislative session ran longer than expected, she says, she has had little time to concentrate on the race. Besides, she adds, Rosen hasn’t made the kind of impact that would make an all-out effort necessary.

But Allen says she expects to step up her activity in the final three weeks of the campaign, anticipating that Rosen’s campaign also will intensify.

She acknowledges that her opponent has done an impressive job for a non-incumbent of soliciting campaign contributions--raising more than $50,000 this year with little or no help from state Democratic Party officials, according to campaign finance statements filed last week. But the documents also show that Rosen has spent most of that money and has $13,000 in debts, while Allen has $80,000 in campaign funds in the bank.

“We’ll be able to do whatever is necessary,” Allen said.

Allen said she is certain she can count on state Republican Party officials to come up with more money for her if Rosen gets a sudden windfall, although Allen has never been close to Assembly Republican Leader Pat Nolan of Glendale. Allen and Republican leaders agree, however, that she probably won’t need the help. They say Rosen’s hope of winning an upset victory is nothing more than a Democratic fantasy.

“As far as we are concerned, there is no race,” said William Saracino, Nolan’s top political strategist. “They couldn’t touch Doris with a pack of dynamite.”