‘A Woman of Courage’

Doris Allen, the first female speaker of the Assembly, was “a woman of courage” whose short, contentious leadership stint led to a lessening of bitter partisanship in Sacramento, the Assembly’s current speaker said Monday at a memorial service.

About 150 people gathered at the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove to remember Allen, who died last month of cancer at her daughter’s home in Boulder, Colo. She was 63.

Once a shy housewife who gained confidence in community theater, Allen went on to a 13-year career as a Republican member of the state Assembly.

She drew the wrath of GOP colleagues in June 1995, when she was elected to succeed longtime Democratic Speaker Willie Brown, now mayor of San Francisco. Allen won with the support of Democrats in the divided Assembly--plus her own vote. She served for three contentious months before resigning to fight a recall launched by Republican foes. She lost that in November 1995.

Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa (D-Los Angeles) and others at the service called her a leader who stood by her principles and refused to buckle under to critics, no matter the cost.

“She really was a woman of courage,” Villaraigosa said after the service. “She demonstrated a conviction and sense of purpose that many of us respected very deeply.”

He said the viciousness and intraparty fighting that nearly paralyzed the Legislature during the final days of Allen’s speakership taught a lesson. “Since those days, we’ve lowered the partisanship,” he said. “I’d like to think she had a part in that.”

Assembly Minority Leader Scott Baugh (R-Huntington Beach), who replaced her after the bitter recall, said Allen should be remembered for the breadth of her career, not the end of it.

“We never had any personal animosity between us at all,” he said after the service. Allen challenged him in 1998 and lost. “She never took potshots. We always talked about the issues.”

Assemblywoman Denise Moreno Ducheny (D-San Diego) was the only other state legislator to attend.

Friends and family members let it be known that the Republicans involved in the recall, including former Assemblyman Curt Pringle and county GOP leader Thomas Fuentes, weren’t invited.

Those eulogizing Allen remembered her Monday as a diligent legislator who refused to be defined by the ambitions of others. Among her legacies was a successful initiative in 1990 that banned the use of gill nets in coastal waters.

The Rev. Robert H. Schuller praised her for a life “that was bravely and beautifully lived.”

But the words of her family pulsed with the pain of watching her career come to an ignominious end as she was vilified by leaders of her own party. Allen insisted that she was the only Republican who could earn the votes of Democrats and be elected the first GOP speaker in 20 years.

“She stood for fighting for what you believe in and seeing it through no matter what the cost,” her daughter, Joanie Dreyer, said. “Mom paid the ultimate cost.”