Allen Terminates Republican Caucus Staff : Politics: Back home, she uses warm welcome from constituents to blast three O.C. opponents as ‘vicious and mean-spirited.’

Newly elected Assembly Speaker Doris Allen returned home Friday to a warm welcome from her constituents and with a promise to thwart opponents from her own party who have bitterly attacked her for the deal she struck with Democrats to win the Speaker’s post.

Allen repeated to cheering supporters in a hotel meeting room that “I am a good Republican” and mocked Republicans who backed away from a threat to put her party loyalty to a test on Thursday, when she presided at the first full session as Assembly Speaker.

“Get out on the floor and give me all you’ve got,” Allen said. “I’m a big girl. Hit me.”

Allen was elected on Monday with the votes of 39 Democrats and one Republican: herself. The Republican infighting that ensued after her victory was highlighted by often vitriolic insults aimed at her. Members of her own party have threatened to recall her because her election was engineered by outgoing Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco).

On Friday, Allen removed Assemblywoman Marilyn Brewer (R-Newport Beach) from the Rules Committee, prompting Brewer to charge that Allen’s ascent to the Speaker’s post “denigrates women” because Allen “is being used by Willie Brown.”

“If Marilyn Brewer feels denigrated, I feel sorry for her, because most women feel terribly excited,” Allen said. “I feel honored.”

She denied charges that Brown prodded her to run for Speaker and that she is his puppet.

“You know why the Democrats voted for me? They’re scared to death of what they [the GOP majority] will do to them without Willie Brown,” Allen said. She added that she dumped Brewer from the prestigious Rules Committee because “I’m going to have people who want to support me. I can’t have them bad-mouthing or stabbing me.”

Republicans have criticized her for reaching an agreement with Democrats to let them chair a dozen committees and have their legislative budgets and staffs protected through the end of 1996. But Allen said she agreed to those terms out of a spirit of bipartisanship. For the Democrats “to do their job, they have to be treated fairly,” she said.

Also, she said, “the new rules are really to protect my speakership.”

Allen singled out GOP lawmakers Ross Johnson (R-Newport Beach), Curt Pringle (R-Garden Grove) and John R. Lewis (R-Orange) for stinging rebukes, calling them “vicious and mean-spirited” legislators “who will punish you in the worst way . . . if you are not of their bent.”

She said the trio were among “a group of Republicans who have been running things--and not very good--for a number of years.”

Allen flew from Sacramento in the afternoon and was greeted by a small group of well-wishers at John Wayne Airport. There was no organized protest, but while she answered questions from reporters, one woman walked by and booed her while another man blurted out, “I like Willie better.”

Tony Nuttke, Allen’s primary opponent in 1994, voiced support for her and criticized Johnson and other GOP politicians as “kingmakers who helped keep Willie Brown in power all these years.” In recent years, Brown was able to remain Assembly Speaker partly with the help of Republican lawmakers.

Del Clark, a Democrat and member of the Los Alamitos School Board, said she was “ecstatic” by Allen’s ascent to the speakership.

“She’s very capable, and it’s about time we started thinking in bipartisan terms,” Clark said.