Doris Allen, First Female Speaker, Dies : Obituary: O.C. political pioneer was a GOP pariah in final years. Cancer claims her at 63.

Doris Allen, the first female speaker of the California Assembly, whose war with fellow Republicans led to her recall by Orange County voters in 1995, died Wednesday of cancer. She was 63.

Allen had survived two earlier bouts with cancer. Doctors recently discovered tumors in her stomach during gall bladder surgery in Sacramento, where she had lived out of the limelight since her defeat in Orange County.

Allen died in a hospice in Colorado Springs, Colo., where she moved three weeks ago to be with her daughter and family. Her son and his family live in Sacramento.

Longtime friend Nancy Smith of Westminster said Allen had been heartened in past weeks by phone calls and cards from friends in Orange County and elsewhere who responded to news of her illness.

“It wasn’t easy for her, but there was such an outpouring of love and respect, at least she got that,” said Smith, who met Allen in the 1960s when they both tried out for a community play in Westminster.

Allen’s longtime chief of staff, Sam Roth, praised his former boss’ work in the Assembly.

“When the dust settles, her record in legislative accomplishments and policy achievements will rank near the top of Orange County’s delegation,” Roth said. “She never compromised on principle. That’s the legacy people should care about.”

Former Speaker Willie Brown, now San Francisco’s mayor, praised Allen as a “good friend” who will be “extremely missed.”

“She was a great advocate for children. She had a passion for fisheries and water species,” Brown said. “Doris took her representative responsibilities seriously.”

Assembly Republican leader Scott Baugh (R-Huntington Beach), who replaced Allen in the recall election, said in prepared remarks: “I am saddened by the news of Doris’ death. My thoughts and prayers are with her family at this time.”

Former Republican Assemblyman Curt Pringle of Garden Grove, a strident critic who strongly backed her recall, looked Wednesday to Allen’s attributes. “Doris represented her constituents well,” he said. “She stood up for what she believed in.”

Busing Battle Became a Political Springboard

Raised in a tough environment in the Midwest, Allen was a twice-divorced mother of two who moved from local theater to her 1976 election to the board of the Huntington Beach Union High School District, a position she held six years.

She led a drive to oppose forced busing and used her public position as a springboard to the Assembly, where she was elected in 1982 to represent Cypress and west Orange County.

She spent the next 13 years in the Assembly focusing on education, including a popular measure to allow interdistrict transfers, and on environmental issues.

But Allen probably will be remembered more for her brief, stormy reign as the first female speaker of the Assembly--an experience she likened to a stay in Dante’s “Inferno.”

She also called the continuing attacks on her after she stepped down a “rape” of her reputation and career by the male leaders of the Republican Party.

“Doris was a very hard-working legislator,” said GOP consultant Eileen Padberg. “What’s sad is the current Republican leadership’s view of her. She was as good a legislator as any of them.”

Assembly Republicans, long the minority party and long chafing under Democrat Willie Brown’s 14-year reign as speaker, had gained even ground with the opposition in the 1994 elections. They were poised in a special election in spring 1995 to take a 40-39 edge in seats and were ready to vote Pringle into the leadership slot.

But Allen, often an outsider among her GOP colleagues, sent them into a rage in June 1995 when she took advantage of a Brown-sanctioned deal to have all the Democrats vote for her as speaker.

A political brawl, heavily laced with gender politics, erupted in the GOP ranks. Republican leaders charged that she had sold out her party and many sniped at her, one saying, “The first thing she ought to do is her hair.”

Allen gave as good as she got, yanking critics from committee posts and vanquishing enemies to closet-size offices, though the tactics were standard practice by previous speakers.

But the battles wore her down. By early September, she suffered what an aide called a “complete meltdown” after showing up 40 minutes late for a news conference and being unable to detail contents of a bill she was supposed to discuss.

Then, a fund-raiser fell far short of a $300,000 goal. Finally, in talking to reporters, she stunned the Capitol when, referring to her Republican enemies, she declared that she was not about to be pushed around by “a bunch of power-mongering men with short penises.”

The comment made her the subject of national attention, and aides persuaded her to step down as speaker and devote her energy to defeating a recall election set for that November.

With then-Gov. Pete Wilson supporting the recall, Allen lost overwhelmingly. She said later that the bitter defeat cost her her health as well.

No Regrets Over Move That Made Her Pariah

In a 1997 interview, Allen blamed the stress of her three months as speaker for the cantaloupe-size tumor removed from her colon. The cancer went into remission for a while.

Despite her travails, Allen said in the interview that she had no regrets about breaking ranks to become Assembly speaker.

“I was the first speaker Orange County ever had,” she said.

Born in Kansas City, Mo., and raised on horse ranches in good times and hovels in bad, Allen once described her father as a strict, eccentric John Wayne wannabe who would use his belt and even a horsewhip to discipline her. She emerged from the extremes of her childhood independent, strong and undaunted.

“I’m not one you can break my spirit,” she said during the speakership fray.

She eventually moved to Southern California, first living with her older sister and ending up in Orange County, where she ran for the school board.

Her ultimate rejection by Assembly Republicans, led by Orange County’s conservative corps, was ironic in one regard. She first rode to victory in 1982 on a conservative wave, pulling votes from once Democratic strongholds in a tight race that both parties viewed as one of most vulnerable seats statewide.

She went to Sacramento with no mentors and few friends, and her naivete--she didn’t know what a caucus was and once kept GOP leaders waiting 45 minutes--put her on the outs with her own party.

Though Allen’s voting record showed her often to be a typical conservative, she irked party colleagues by working with Democrats who controlled the Legislature to get laws passed on education and public safety at schools.

Some of those laws, as well as an environmental measure, were backed more by Democrats than Republicans.

In 1990, for instance, Allen sponsored a successful ballot measure to ban gill net fishing off the California coast to protect seals from being mangled in the nets.

She also won a fight against the gun lobby in 1994 by getting a law passed that established a gun-free zone around campuses, with mandatory expulsion for getting caught with guns or drugs near schools. The law made possession of a gun at school a felony.

Not One of the Guys, She Perceived Slights

Throughout her career in Sacramento, Allen said she was never accepted or taken seriously by male Republican leaders because she was a woman.

Allen never forgave the GOP delegation for heavily backing state Sen. Ross Johnson (R-Irvine) when he and then-Assemblyman Gil Ferguson (R-Newport Beach) ran against her in a hotly contested three-way state Senate primary. Winning the speakership was payback for their treatment of her, she said in interviews.

The 1995 recall election that cost Allen her office also took a toll on other Republicans.

Four GOP aides pleaded guilty to misdemeanor campaign violations in connection with a scheme to put a decoy Democrat on the recall ballot to split the vote in the winner-take-all election.

Baugh, who won and later cast the deciding vote to make Pringle speaker, faced an investigation and criminal charges for campaign reporting violations. A new prosecutor dropped the criminal case early this year and turned the allegations over to the state Fair Political Practices Commission. Baugh paid a $47,900 civil fine in July to end the matter.

Former Dist. Atty. Mike Capizzi, who dared to prosecute fellow party members and by doing so faced the wrath of GOP leaders, was ignominiously dumped by his party in his losing bid for state attorney general in the 1998 primary elections.

Pringle served as speaker for a year, dethroned when Democrats regained control of the Assembly. Last year, Pringle, forced out of the Assembly by term limits, lost a bid to become state treasurer.

Allen, meanwhile, won her place in the political record books, not only as the first female speaker of the Assembly but also as a speaker who served the shortest term of anyone in the 20th century.

Allen and her husband James Allen were divorced in 1988 after 21 years of marriage. She is survived by her son, Ron Herbertson of Sacramento; daughter Joni Dreyer of Colorado Springs; mother Eloise Reptetea of Lakewood; sisters Donna Thompson of Colorado and Pamela Krueger of Lakewood, and five granddaughters.

Funeral services are pending. She will be buried after a private service in Cripple Creek, Colo. A local memorial tribute is being planned for the end of October, Nancy Smith said.