150 Mourn Doris Allen at Crystal Cathedral

Doris Allen, the only woman ever to be Assembly speaker, was “a woman of courage” whose legacy may be that her experience in the Assembly led to a lessening of the partisanship that pervaded her final year in office, the 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 homemaker who gained confidence in community theater, Allen went on to a 13-year career as a Republican member of the 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 was recalled 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.”