Doris Allen
Biographical Summaries of Notable People
Birth: May 26 1936 - United States of America
Death: Cause of death: Colorectal cancer, Stomach cancer - Sep 22 1999
Residence: Orange County
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Doris J. Allen was the first women 'Speaker of the Assembly' in the State of California Legislature.
Embattled Speaker In California Resigns- NEW YORK TIMES
Published: September 16, 1995
The Assembly Speaker, Doris Allen, resigned her leadership post on Thursday after months of abuse from her fellow Republicans for having cut a deal with the former Speaker, a Democrat, to succeed him in the sharply divided Assembly.
"I'm very happy to be stepping out of Dante's 'Inferno,' " Ms. Allen said.
Doris Allen served in the California Assembly from 1982 to 1995 and as Speaker of that body from June 5 to September 14 1995, before being recalled from office by her constitutents.
Born in Kansas City, Missouri, Allen was a Republican, but when Republicans gained a one-vote majority in 1995, threatening longtime Democratic Speaker Willie Brown's hold on power, Brown convinced Allen and another Republican, Brian Setencich, to vote with the Democrats. Brown had Allen elected Speaker, but in name only, since Brown continued to lead the legislative body as head of the Democratic caucus.
Allen's defection outraged her Republican colleagues, led by Curt Pringle, as well as her Republican constituents, who in November 1995 recalled her from office. Before her removal, however, Allen resigned as Speaker, handing the gavel over to Setencich. However, in January 1996, when Brown resigned his seat in the State Assembly and was sworn in as Mayor of San Francisco, Setencich would lose that vote, restoring the Republicans' majority and allowing them to elect Pringle as Speaker in January 1996.
Allen died of stomach and colon cancer at her home in Colorado Springs, Colorado on September 22, 1999.
Political History
1990: Primary Candidate, California State Senate
1991: Special Primary Candidate for SD-35 (Lost; 16%)
1995: Speaker, California State Assembly
1995: Recalled in a Special Election
1998: Primary Candidate for AD-67 (Lost; 15.7%)
Doris Allen, First Female Speaker, Dies : Obituary: O.C. political pioneer was a GOP pariah in final years. Cancer claims her at 63.
September 23, 1999|NANCY HILL-HOLTZMAN and JEAN O. PASCO | TIMES STAFF WRITERS
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.
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.
Family and Friends Mourn Doris Allen at Crystal Cathedral
October 26, 1999
GARDEN GROVE — 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.
September 23, 1999 | NANCY HILL-HOLTZMAN and JEAN O. PASCO, TIMES STAFF WRITERS
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.
Biographical Summaries of Notable People
Birth: May 26 1936 - United States of America
Death: Cause of death: Colorectal cancer, Stomach cancer - Sep 22 1999
Residence: Orange County
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Doris J. Allen was the first women 'Speaker of the Assembly' in the State of California Legislature.
Embattled Speaker In California Resigns- NEW YORK TIMES
Published: September 16, 1995
The Assembly Speaker, Doris Allen, resigned her leadership post on Thursday after months of abuse from her fellow Republicans for having cut a deal with the former Speaker, a Democrat, to succeed him in the sharply divided Assembly.
"I'm very happy to be stepping out of Dante's 'Inferno,' " Ms. Allen said.
Doris Allen served in the California Assembly from 1982 to 1995 and as Speaker of that body from June 5 to September 14 1995, before being recalled from office by her constitutents.
Born in Kansas City, Missouri, Allen was a Republican, but when Republicans gained a one-vote majority in 1995, threatening longtime Democratic Speaker Willie Brown's hold on power, Brown convinced Allen and another Republican, Brian Setencich, to vote with the Democrats. Brown had Allen elected Speaker, but in name only, since Brown continued to lead the legislative body as head of the Democratic caucus.
Allen's defection outraged her Republican colleagues, led by Curt Pringle, as well as her Republican constituents, who in November 1995 recalled her from office. Before her removal, however, Allen resigned as Speaker, handing the gavel over to Setencich. However, in January 1996, when Brown resigned his seat in the State Assembly and was sworn in as Mayor of San Francisco, Setencich would lose that vote, restoring the Republicans' majority and allowing them to elect Pringle as Speaker in January 1996.
Allen died of stomach and colon cancer at her home in Colorado Springs, Colorado on September 22, 1999.
Political History
1990: Primary Candidate, California State Senate
1991: Special Primary Candidate for SD-35 (Lost; 16%)
1995: Speaker, California State Assembly
1995: Recalled in a Special Election
1998: Primary Candidate for AD-67 (Lost; 15.7%)
Doris Allen, First Female Speaker, Dies : Obituary: O.C. political pioneer was a GOP pariah in final years. Cancer claims her at 63.
September 23, 1999|NANCY HILL-HOLTZMAN and JEAN O. PASCO | TIMES STAFF WRITERS
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.
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.
Family and Friends Mourn Doris Allen at Crystal Cathedral
October 26, 1999
GARDEN GROVE — 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.
September 23, 1999 | NANCY HILL-HOLTZMAN and JEAN O. PASCO, TIMES STAFF WRITERS
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.
Doris Allen
Biographical Summaries of Notable People
Birth: May 26 1936 - United States of America
Death: Cause of death: Colorectal cancer, Stomach cancer - Sep 22 1999
Residence: Orange County
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Doris J. Allen was the first women 'Speaker of the Assembly' in the State of California Legislature.
Embattled Speaker In California Resigns- NEW YORK TIMES
Published: September 16, 1995
The Assembly Speaker, Doris Allen, resigned her leadership post on Thursday after months of abuse from her fellow Republicans for having cut a deal with the former Speaker, a Democrat, to succeed him in the sharply divided Assembly.
"I'm very happy to be stepping out of Dante's 'Inferno,' " Ms. Allen said.
Doris Allen served in the California Assembly from 1982 to 1995 and as Speaker of that body from June 5 to September 14 1995, before being recalled from office by her constitutents.
Born in Kansas City, Missouri, Allen was a Republican, but when Republicans gained a one-vote majority in 1995, threatening longtime Democratic Speaker Willie Brown's hold on power, Brown convinced Allen and another Republican, Brian Setencich, to vote with the Democrats. Brown had Allen elected Speaker, but in name only, since Brown continued to lead the legislative body as head of the Democratic caucus.
Allen's defection outraged her Republican colleagues, led by Curt Pringle, as well as her Republican constituents, who in November 1995 recalled her from office. Before her removal, however, Allen resigned as Speaker, handing the gavel over to Setencich. However, in January 1996, when Brown resigned his seat in the State Assembly and was sworn in as Mayor of San Francisco, Setencich would lose that vote, restoring the Republicans' majority and allowing them to elect Pringle as Speaker in January 1996.
Allen died of stomach and colon cancer at her home in Colorado Springs, Colorado on September 22, 1999.
Political History
1990: Primary Candidate, California State Senate
1991: Special Primary Candidate for SD-35 (Lost; 16%)
1995: Speaker, California State Assembly
1995: Recalled in a Special Election
1998: Primary Candidate for AD-67 (Lost; 15.7%)
Doris Allen, First Female Speaker, Dies : Obituary: O.C. political pioneer was a GOP pariah in final years. Cancer claims her at 63.
September 23, 1999|NANCY HILL-HOLTZMAN and JEAN O. PASCO | TIMES STAFF WRITERS
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.
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.
Family and Friends Mourn Doris Allen at Crystal Cathedral
October 26, 1999
GARDEN GROVE — 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.
September 23, 1999 | NANCY HILL-HOLTZMAN and JEAN O. PASCO, TIMES STAFF WRITERS
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.
Biographical Summaries of Notable People
Birth: May 26 1936 - United States of America
Death: Cause of death: Colorectal cancer, Stomach cancer - Sep 22 1999
Residence: Orange County
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Doris J. Allen was the first women 'Speaker of the Assembly' in the State of California Legislature.
Embattled Speaker In California Resigns- NEW YORK TIMES
Published: September 16, 1995
The Assembly Speaker, Doris Allen, resigned her leadership post on Thursday after months of abuse from her fellow Republicans for having cut a deal with the former Speaker, a Democrat, to succeed him in the sharply divided Assembly.
"I'm very happy to be stepping out of Dante's 'Inferno,' " Ms. Allen said.
Doris Allen served in the California Assembly from 1982 to 1995 and as Speaker of that body from June 5 to September 14 1995, before being recalled from office by her constitutents.
Born in Kansas City, Missouri, Allen was a Republican, but when Republicans gained a one-vote majority in 1995, threatening longtime Democratic Speaker Willie Brown's hold on power, Brown convinced Allen and another Republican, Brian Setencich, to vote with the Democrats. Brown had Allen elected Speaker, but in name only, since Brown continued to lead the legislative body as head of the Democratic caucus.
Allen's defection outraged her Republican colleagues, led by Curt Pringle, as well as her Republican constituents, who in November 1995 recalled her from office. Before her removal, however, Allen resigned as Speaker, handing the gavel over to Setencich. However, in January 1996, when Brown resigned his seat in the State Assembly and was sworn in as Mayor of San Francisco, Setencich would lose that vote, restoring the Republicans' majority and allowing them to elect Pringle as Speaker in January 1996.
Allen died of stomach and colon cancer at her home in Colorado Springs, Colorado on September 22, 1999.
Political History
1990: Primary Candidate, California State Senate
1991: Special Primary Candidate for SD-35 (Lost; 16%)
1995: Speaker, California State Assembly
1995: Recalled in a Special Election
1998: Primary Candidate for AD-67 (Lost; 15.7%)
Doris Allen, First Female Speaker, Dies : Obituary: O.C. political pioneer was a GOP pariah in final years. Cancer claims her at 63.
September 23, 1999|NANCY HILL-HOLTZMAN and JEAN O. PASCO | TIMES STAFF WRITERS
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.
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.
Family and Friends Mourn Doris Allen at Crystal Cathedral
October 26, 1999
GARDEN GROVE — 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.
September 23, 1999 | NANCY HILL-HOLTZMAN and JEAN O. PASCO, TIMES STAFF WRITERS
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.
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