CALIFORNIA COMMENTARY: Doris Allen is the new Assembly Speaker because back-room dealers have a poisonous grip on the GOP.

Republican Doris Allen is the new Speaker of the California Assembly. She is the first woman in our state’s history to achieve that distinction. And she is the first Republican to hold that post in a very long time. Allen replaced California’s most powerful Democrat, Willie Brown, who held the Speaker’s post with the absolute authority of an ayatollah for a record 15 years. However, not all of Allen’s Republican colleagues are happy. She was elected with all Democratic votes plus her own. Not a single other Republican Assembly member voted for her.

One would expect that Republican politicians would be dancing in the streets, shouting, “Free at last, free at last,” showering Allen with kudos and accolades. Not even close. Some have labeled her a traitor and some have even threatened to recall her. Why? Because she upset their carefully crafted and costly plans. After all, the Orange County kingmakers have invested millions of dollars in their continuing efforts to win and dominate the Assembly.

There are some real problems within the California Republican Party and those problems led to the election of Speaker Allen.

It started back in the 1970s with the election of a group of young conservative Republicans just out of college. They were called the “Proposition 13 Babies.” They brought with them a fierce determination to take over the Assembly with a conservative majority. They quickly earned the sobriquet of “cavemen” by standing together against the Democratic liberal agenda. As the years passed, they helped elect other conservatives, including this writer. After the conservatives had taken over the Republican leadership in the Assembly, however, things started to fall apart.

It wasn’t long before many of us realized that while we thought we were all part of the same leadership, we had never been included in the real decision-making. We started pulling away from the early leaders when they began to emulate Willie Brown’s fund-raising tactics.

Soon after, the cavemen began to self-destruct with indictments, convictions, retirements and some moving on to Congress and the state Senate. They left behind some no-longer-naive former true believers and a number of people they had hurt politically.

With huge sums of money from special interests and campaign war chests from their successors in Orange County, they have since managed to control a large number of primary elections. In most instances, the Republicans elected were conservative; those defeated were independent.

Allen was honest with the Republican caucus members. She told them she would not vote for anyone beholden to the kingmakers and that she, as the caucus’ senior member, just recently the target of their vile attacks, was in the race for Speaker. They could have accepted her and she could easily have gotten some Democrats to join them. Yet they refused to support her.

You have to wonder if Republicans can count. Had they agreed on any of the other 35 members and nominated that person, Allen would have voted with them. She said so. Even had she wanted to do otherwise, she would not have; she is a Republican.

Republican politicians should have learned from the missed opportunities of the past 20 years. We should have learned that money, and lots of it in the hands of politically ambitious men, will always have the same predictable ending. Some will end up disgraced, some in jail, a few will leave for greener pastures and the few who survive will eventually end up with a bunch of ingrates they helped elect and the disappointment of seeing one of those they tried to crush sitting in the catbird seat.