It Wasn’t Your Typical Fund-Raiser

Assembly Speaker Doris Allen wasn’t talking.

At least, the embattled Speaker wasn’t talking to the folks outside the Old Sacramento restaurant where she held her first fund-raiser as leader of the lower house Monday evening.

Allen is a Republican, the first Speaker from the GOP in 25 years. But on the occasion of her first fund-raiser as Speaker, she was greeted by a dozen Republican pickets. And on in the inside, Democratic lawmakers made up the largest single contingent. At least 20 Democratic Assembly members were there.

“I hear the sounds of sore losers,” Democratic Assemblyman John Vasconcellos of Santa Clara said as he walked into the Firehouse Restaurant, past the chanting pickets.

In Sacramento, most Republicans would not be seen at a Democrat’s fund-raiser, and Democrats don’t normally attend GOP affairs. Fund-raisers, after all, are used to raise election-year war chests to help give one party an advantage over another.

But this year, when state politics are at the height of weirdness, most of Allen’s strongest supporters are Democrats--despite her conservative, anti-abortion, pro-gun-owner politics.

Making Monday’s event stranger still, one of the Speaker’s main jobs is to raise money to keep her party in power. But Republican Assembly members are warring with Allen, and Allen is fighting back, making it unlikely that she will give a nickel to most GOP incumbents next year. What money she raised on Monday probably will be used to fend off the recall effort against her.

How much she raised is unclear. But in a city where money usually equals power, Allen ended the night looking weak. One of her aides said perhaps 100 people attended, paying $1,000 to schmooze with her, and eat what one guest described as chips and salsa.

She certainly did not match the $700,000 that her predecessor, Willie Brown, could raise in a night, or the $200,000 that Assembly Republican Leader Jim Brulte raised in April, when he was in the running to become Speaker.

Whether Allen viewed the event as a success is not known. To avoid the pickets and reporters, she entered by ducking in through a usually locked door of the restaurant, while other guests entered through the rear alley.

As the event was ending, most of the remaining pickets and reporters wandered to the front door, where the Speaker’s dark-green Cadillac was parked. But Allen had her driver pull the car around to the alley and whisk her away.

Other than Allen, only two Republican lawmakers made it to the event, and one, Bernie Richter of Chico, stayed such a short time that his driver barely had time to turn off the car engine.

As Richter left, one of the young Republicans sneered, “Sell-out,” but was quickly hushed by a calmer comrade.

The other Republican lawmaker was freshman Assemblyman Brian Setencich, who is Allen’s closest Republican lieutenant and the one who bangs the gavel at the rancorous Assembly floor sessions.

“We need to support Doris and move the Republican agenda,” Setencich said. “When you believe something is right, you just do it. To me, it’s easy.”

A gregarious former basketball player, Setencich struck up a conversation with four of the pickets. He even obliged by autographing a picket’s placard, folded so the message didn’t show.

“Make it out to Chad,” young Republican picket Chad Cooper, 17, said, passing him the folded placard.

After Setencich left, Chad grinned as he opened the placard, revealing the message: “Doris Allen Sold Us Out.” The other picketers were quite amused.

The pickets chanted to the beat of anti-Vietnam War protests about how Doris Allen has got to go. They wore T-shirts emblazoned with the word RINO, as in Republican in Name Only, with a red slash across it.

Their signs denounced Allen as a traitor. One pleaded with passers-by to “Remember the Caucus 12,” a reference to the Republican political staffers fired by Allen since she took office, but not a moniker destined to go down in history with the Chicago Eight.

Lobbyists, who go where the power is, generally show up at fund-raisers regardless of party label. But given that Allen is facing a recall and is being challenged constantly by Republican rivals in the Assembly, they did not show up in great numbers Monday night.

Lobbyists for public schools, universities and colleges were probably the most heavily represented. As an assemblywoman, Allen was a strong supporter of public schools. As Speaker, Allen will be one of the main negotiators of the state budget, which by law must be adopted by Saturday.

“She’s Speaker, and she’s going to be Speaker,” said Patrick McCallum, lobbyist for community colleges. “If Jim Brulte were Speaker, I would have been here.”