It Wasn’t Much Fun While It Lasted

Doris Allen is sitting in the Speaker’s regal office, where Willie Brown reigned for 14 1/2 years, and explaining how she persuaded Brown and the Democrats to back down from their demands on her. They agreed to sever strings that made her look like their puppet.

“They saw me being beaten up pretty badly on the floor and heard the insults,” she said, relaxing at a big round table not 30 feet from the Assembly chamber, site of Republican internecine warfare for the last three weeks.

“I told them,” she continued, recalling a gross understatement, “that ‘I don’t think it’s working out.’ . . . All the horrible barbs and arrows that are thrown at me. I’m not Wonder Woman. I don’t have my little magic bracelet.”

It’s doubtful any California politician in a leadership role has ever come under harsher attack from her own party than Allen. And for an understandable reason: She sold out the Assembly GOP to become the first Republican Speaker in 25 years.

She made this deal with Democrats: Despite a 40-39 GOP majority, each committee would remain evenly divided between the parties until a 41st Republican is elected. That’s expected in September. Only then would Republicans get a one-vote majority on most committees. But the three most powerful--Appropriations, Budget and Rules--would remain evenly split.

That was a formula for gridlock and the killing of a Republican agenda pushed by campaign contributors from the business world.

All of Allen’s votes for Speaker came from Democrats and herself, a coalition without precedent. Every other Republican voted for GOP Leader Jim Brulte.

Republicans demanded that Allen double-cross the Democrats and give the GOP an immediate advantage on every committee. She refused. But within two weeks, she talked Democrats into letting her wiggle free from their agreement.

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“I told them,” she said, “ ‘I don’t know whether this will give us that much more peace. But it will give me peace to know that we can carry forth the Republican agenda. . . . I would truly appreciate it. They’re putting a lot of heat on my back.’ ”

To the chagrin of many Republicans, the new Speaker last Thursday gave the GOP most of what it had demanded: An immediate majority on every committee, except Rules. This deprived the Republicans of their best ammunition against Allen in an Orange County recall drive.

She didn’t trust her GOP colleagues enough to also hand them control of the Rules Committee. And neither did the Democrats.

But Democrats realized that the dream deal they had struck with Allen was too good to last. It was not politically sustainable. Even if it did not lead to her recall, the Assembly was in shambles. Each floor session was an embarrassment--or should have been.

“The people of California want us to grow up and stop throwing these tantrums because we can’t have our way,” Assemblywoman Marguerite Archie-Hudson (D-Los Angeles) told Republicans. “Stop acting like kindergartners.”

In defense of tantrums, however, these were what finally convinced Democrats that they should back down.

Half a loaf was better than none. And for Democrats, their top priority was keeping Allen as Speaker, not the committees. It would be more chancy, but GOP bills still could be killed on the floor because passage requires at least 41 votes; sometimes 54.

Democrats still would chair half the committees--and co-chair the other half--and be in position to attract campaign donations from special interests.

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Ask Democrats why they installed and are protecting Allen as Speaker and you’ll likely hear only part of the answer. Chances are you won’t hear, as one key assemblyman told me privately, that “we needed 40 votes. We only had 39 and she offered to be 40.”

She bought in and always will owe Democrats.

Democrats also feared Brulte’s ability as an election tactician and money-raiser. They saw to it that he never will be Speaker. In fact, outside the Capitol there now is grumbling among GOP officials and major contributors that “Brulte has to go.” One told me: “We need a fresh face, somebody with a winning image.”

The leading potential replacement seems to be Assemblyman James E. Rogan (R-Glendale).

The explanation Democrats publicly give for backing Allen is that they believe she’ll be “fair.” Brown says, “She’s the only fair, independent person I know on the Republican side. She’s the only person who puts the interest of the house above this myopic, shortsighted group of militant, anti-government do-nothings.”

Allen asserts, “Time is on my side. This is going to wear thin on the public. I’m not going away. I can take a lot of abuse.”

Tough talk from a tough woman who again has momentum--this time in a forward direction.