Independence Not New for New Speaker

She is a product of the Midwestern plains, of a childhood equal parts American dream and nightmare. She was a horse-crazy girl spending happy days on the family ranch; she was the survivor of a strict father prone to making a point with a belt.

Those extremes bred in Doris Allen a deep, sometimes stubborn independence that has been there ever since. As a wife and mother who took time to dabble as an amateur actress, as a school board trustee and ultimately an Orange County assemblywoman, Allen has always been one to go her own way.

And on Monday, she once again did just that. Allen broke ranks with the Republican colleagues she felt had turned their backs on her once too often. And she joined with the Democrats to make herself the first GOP Speaker of the Assembly in a quarter-century and the first woman ever to hold the post.

It was an odd turn of events both in the annals of California politics and in Allen’s career. The 59-year-old lawmaker has been mostly obscure and largely inconsequential compared to more flamboyant politicians such as the man she replaces, longtime Democratic Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco).

“I think Doris is going to prove to be a moderate who will try to be fair to lawmakers on both sides of the aisle,” said Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sylmar), a top lieutenant to Brown. “She has shown her independence from the Republicans. Now I think she’ll show her independence from the Democrats who helped her get the speakership.”

Even as Democrats applauded her ascent, Allen’s Republican colleagues were already on fire. They suggest Allen is a chronic overachiever who has vaulted to the Assembly’s top post on the whims of opponents eager to capitalize on her weaknesses.

“This is a woman who told me that she hasn’t signed her own letters in years, she doesn’t read her own mail, who comes in late in the morning because she doesn’t like mornings,” said Assemblywoman Paula L. Boland (R-Granada Hills). “I can’t get excited about this--even if she is the first Republican woman Speaker.”

Such arrows are nothing new for Allen, who has lived a life marked by extremes.

Born in Kansas City, Mo., Allen was raised by a father she describes as an “eccentric” John Wayne wanna-be, who delighted in owning scores of horses and who continually moved the family from multi-acre homestead to hovel as his fortunes rose or fell.

“I’ve lived with everything and lived with virtually nothing,” Allen recalled recently. “My father made a lot of money and he spent a lot of money.”

While her mother schooled Doris and her two sisters on the etiquette of being a lady, her father had the girls hauling bales of hay. A strict disciplinarian, Allen’s father didn’t spare the rod, she said. “He used everything from his belt to his hand to switches to a horsewhip.”

She managed to break away by coming to California and living with an older sister who had come west. But the tough childhood made its imprint.

“It probably made me strong,” Allen says today. “I’m not one you can break my spirit.”

Twice divorced and the mother of two grown children, Allen ended up in Orange County and dived into the community. Concern for her children’s education prompted the political neophyte to run for the school board in Huntington Beach. She won, serving five years and making a mark as a busing foe and advocate of vocational education.

At the prodding of a student, Allen decided to run for the Assembly in 1978, challenging a Democratic incumbent named Chet Wray who had earned the nickname “Chet Wray Chet” after he read a floor speech twice without realizing it. Allen failed on the first try and a second one, but earned a seat and dispatched Wray in 1982.

She remembers coming to the Capitol with the wide-eyed innocence of Alice in Wonderland. Allen had no mentors and few friends. The town was strange and she had no idea how to push policy, let alone grapple with the political whirl.

“When I first arrived, they told me to go to caucus,” Allen recalled, referring to the title for each party’s membership in a house. “I had to go ask someone what the caucus was.”

The naivete manifested itself in other ways. Insiders say Allen alienated her own party leaders soon after her election. When two Republican assemblymen drove to her Orange County office to talk caucus politics, they were forced to wait 45 minutes, a fatal mistake for a freshman.

She has grown since then, and now is the senior member of her party in the Assembly. But like other Republicans operating in a house long held by Democrats, Allen has been hard-pressed to claim many legislative victories with much throw weight.

Perhaps her greatest achievement was her successful push on behalf of sportfishing enthusiasts for a 1990 state ballot measure. It banned the use of gill nets by commercial fishermen, a practice that recreational fishermen blamed for flagging fish counts in coastal waters.

To the dismay of her Republican colleagues from conservative Orange County, Allen never shied away from working with Democrats over the years. While the standard line among the conservative brethren was to oppose anything resembling more revenue for Big Government and studiously avoid aiding the opposition, Allen could be counted on by Democrats to back schoolteachers or help craft a compromise on regulatory streamlining.

Allen also enjoyed a cordial relationship with Brown, the bull’s-eye for vengeful Republican politicos up and down the state. And Brown, with the spoils system of the speakership at his disposal, did what he could to cultivate the relationship.

Allen once found herself ignored during an administrative fight with the state Fish and Game Department, so she asked Brown for help. The Speaker interceded by promptly arranging to have the department’s budget held hostage in the Legislature until administrators gave Allen what she wanted.

It was just that sort of back-scratching that convinced many Republicans that Brown could ultimately count on Allen as a vote if his leadership depended on it, a charge that both lawmakers deny. Countless Republicans nonetheless raised the issue again Monday.

“Doris Allen sold out her party and her caucus to become Speaker,” growled Assemblyman Curt Pringle (R-Garden Grove). “We’re not just saddened by what happened--we’re angry and outraged about it.”

Allen sees it differently, suggesting that a litany of Republican leaders helped effectively push her out of the nest by making a practice of punishing party members who failed to go along with the GOP program.

She counts as her first transgression failing to support former Assembly Republican Leader Pat Nolan in a leadership fight soon after she arrived in the Capitol. Nolan is now serving time in prison for political corruption, but many of his former associates remain ensconced in the Republican hierarchy.

“It’s been fun and games ever since,” Allen said recently.

Allen crossed swords in 1991 with one of the favored sons of Orange County conservatives, then-Assemblyman John R. Lewis, and was defeated in a race for state Senate.

The very next year, however, Allen took on fellow GOP Assemblymen Tom Mays and Nolan Frizzelle in an assembly race that pitted the incumbents against each other because of redistricting. She earned the backing of some of her longtime opponents in the party hierarchy.

Allen prevailed with a razor-thin victory in a race that was most notable because the assemblywoman took in about $100,000 in contributions from a political group that included the California Teachers Assn., which has long had close links to Brown and the Democrats.

What ultimately frustrated Allen was her race for a Senate seat earlier this year against two other former Assembly Republican colleagues, Ross Johnson of Placentia and Gil Ferguson of Newport Beach.

Allen, who received less support than she had hoped from teachers’ groups, blamed Johnson for strong-arming her traditional backers. And she chastised her Republican caucus colleagues for almost unanimously backing Johnson.

Assembly Republican Leader Jim Brulte of Rancho Cucamonga, whom Allen defeated Monday in the speakership struggle, tried to assuage Allen’s concerns by giving her the chairmanship of the Assembly Health Committee.

But even that move backfired when Allen became miffed that Republican leaders refused to refer bills dealing with health maintenance organizations to her committee, preferring that they go instead to the more business-friendly climate of the Insurance Committee.

For Allen, who had watched her mother nearly die in an HMO hospital because of what she considers neglect, it was the last straw. Although the GOP leadership ultimately decided to refer the bills to both committees, Allen within days announced her candidacy for the speakership.

Times staff writer Cynthia H. Craft contributed to this report.