Allen Recall Roils Ranks of O.C. Republican Women : Politics: Loyalties are divided between their longtime colleague and pressure to support the party leadership.

Cherry Matinas chooses her words carefully when describing the mood of her neighborhood Republican women’s group--the Huntington Harbour Republican Women Federated.

After all, Assemblywoman Doris Allen (R-Cypress), the target of a bitterly contested recall, is a member, as are two other women running for Allen’s seat in the Legislature: Haydee V. Tillotson and Shirley Carey. Even Marilyn MacAllister, wife of another Republican candidate for Assembly in the November recall--former Huntington Beach Mayor Don MacAllister--is a member of the group.

“I think our group has held up very well under the stress of all this,” insists Matinas, the organization’s president.

Others are not so diplomatic in describing the turmoil of the past few months, not only in Huntington Harbour but within its parent organization, the 30,000-member California Federation of Republican Women, the country’s largest volunteer Republican women’s organization.

The infighting centers around Allen, who until she allied with state Democrats last June to become the first female speaker in Assembly history, was a popular figure in her 67th District in northwest Orange County.

Now, Allen loyalists and her detractors--faithful Republicans all--sit divided into two determined camps of federation members. One side is aligned with Republican party leaders, who want to recall Allen for working with the Democrats. The others remain faithful to Allen, who, with 13 years in office, is the senior Republican in the Assembly.

The polarization threatens to wreak havoc on the state’s proud, and normally tranquil, women’s organization, which prides itself on its unshakable endorsements of Republican candidates, many members say.

“There’s no doubt about it, people are torn over this,” said Lois Godfrey, wife of Fullerton City Councilman Peter Godfrey, and the newly elected president of the organization’s southern division. “It has the potential of tearing the federation apart.”

What’s more, the recall has the potential of backfiring and allowing a Democrat to win Allen’s seat in a Nov. 28 special election held in conjunction with the Allen recall vote.

On the ballot with the Allen recall are six possible replacements, four Republicans and two Democrats. If voters choose to recall Allen, the four strong Republican replacement candidates could split the GOP vote, allowing Democrat Linda Moulton-Patterson, the leading Democratic contender, to take the victory.

County Democrats have filed a complaint with the registrar of voters, seeking to remove candidate Laurie Campbell--running as a Democrat--from the ballot. Democratic officials allege that one or more Republican legislators “engineered” Campbell’s candidacy and that she perjured herself on nomination papers. Campbell has declined to comment.

At stake is the Republican’s 41 to 39 majority in the Assembly, an advantage the GOP has worked for years to obtain.

It’s enough to make Godfrey happy to be in Fullerton and not in Allen’s district, where the in-house GOP battle will play out.

“I’m very glad to be out of that district for this one,” Godfrey said. “I think if I was there, I’d be making some phone calls to the four Republicans who are running and pleading with two or three to drop out. It would be very different if this were a primary or a one-on-one race, but this is winner take all.”

Electing Republicans and educating women about government are the two key missions of the women’s group, a 57-year-old, 115,000-member nationwide organization whose motto is “Politics make it possible, women make it work.”

The National Federation of Republican Women, whose paid president is Charlotte Mousel of Tustin, has grown to 2,300 chapters like the club in Huntington Harbour, including at least one in every state as well as the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam and the Virgin Islands.

The group is often described as generally more moderate than the ultraconservative California Republican Assembly, a smaller volunteer organization, although many women are members of both.

Unlike the Republican Assembly, members of the Federated Women’s group generally are not supposed to take sides in Republican races, nor speak disparagingly about Republican candidates, said Butchie Porter of San Juan Capistrano, a 30-year club member and former state vice president, who is now the parliamentarian for the southern division.

Club members keep their disputes within their private meetings and generally toil behind the scenes in support of Republican candidates, Porter said.

“We don’t speak disparagingly about Republicans,” she said. “We . . . do the work. Somebody has to make the phone calls and somebody has to run the headquarters.”

But Porter is not shy about acknowledging that she and other club members are troubled by the attacks on Allen, particularly the vitriol from Republicans on the Assembly floor in the early days of Allen’s speakership last summer. Many perceived the criticism as cheap shots at Allen, a popular and active member of clubs in her district for more than 15 years.

“We don’t like the personal remarks against things like her hairdo,” Porter said. “Our women get real upset about those kinds of things.”

The controversy bubbled to the surface during the Orange County Fair last summer, when the Balboa Bay Republican Women Federated, who supported Allen, refused to place recall petitions on the table of the county GOP’s booth, a move that got them lambasted by county Republican leaders. The statewide Republican Party has since endorsed the recall.

Among members who have tried to stay neutral, this attempt to take down a GOP leader does not sit well, said Evelyn Mayberry of Huntington Beach, a 35-year member of the federation and a longtime active Republican who was a member of the party’s state central committee.

“I’m very upset that the party has gotten involved in a recall like this,” Mayberry said. “I don’t understand it and I think it’s a waste of time and money. We need to be putting our money toward beating Clinton.”

The last serious public controversy to erupt in the club came in 1992 and focused on yet another member of the 293-woman Huntington Harbour unit: former Orange County Supervisor Harriett M. Wieder. When Wieder endorsed Bill Clinton for President in 1992, she was the focus of an executive board hearing and eventually kicked out of the Federated Women for violating a club bylaw, Matinas said.

“The two cases are absolutely different,” Matinas said. “[Wieder] was in violation of the club bylaws and we are a national federation, guided by the national bylaws, and the board voted to expel her from the club. . . . Doris Allen is not in violation at all.”

Mayberry speaks for many local members when she says Allen “for 13 years did a great job representing her constituency. . . . The fact she is not a team player is what makes [party leaders] mad.”

“This recall has gotten a lot of people all mixed up. It’s stirred up a frenzy,” Mayberry said. “I think the average woman in the club hates controversy within the party. They don’t want to make a stand.”

As president of her unit, Matinas remains determined to keep the group officially neutral in the Allen controversy, despite individual loyalties.

“There are members within our club both for and against the recall,” Matinas said. But she added that the push and pull of allegiances are part of any local election.

“That’s politics,” she said. “That’s the name of the game.”