This is not how #Katie #Porter hoped to spend her summer.

The Orange County congresswoman had gone from unknown to #political #celebrity virtually overnight,
wielding a #whiteboard and marking pen to skewer lobbyists,
torment chief executives and harry various corporate heavies
— to the utter rapture of the online, cable-TV-consuming wing of the Democratic Party.

She transformed herself from UC #law #professor into a #fundraising #dynamo,
a #progressive #heroine and
oft-discussed #prospect for higher office.

Then it all came crashing down as Porter lost, badly, in a fractious Senate primary to fellow Rep. Adam B. Schiff.

Now he’s the one cruising to election and potential lifetime tenure in Washington, as Porter confronts the end of her congressional career a few short months from now

She has, Porter says, no regrets.

Do I think I underestimated some factors and overestimated some others? -- Sure.

“But when I look at that campaign, I don’t think there was ...
a particular moment or a particular decision that shaped it either way.”

“Adam and Barbara and I remained very cordial throughout the race,” Porter said.

“We saw each other every day at work. People forget that.

We’re sitting in delegation meetings together;
we’re on the airplane together.

We understand that when you run, someone wins and someone loses.”

Her one hope for Schiff is that he uses the fall campaign
(such as it is against his handpicked opponent, the hapless Republican Steve Garvey)
to talk about some of the many issues facing California.

“We need a real #policy #debate in California,” Porter said.

“We have a narrative about California being [Gov. Gavin Newsom’s] golden California dreaming,

but also people who are like, ‘This is a failed state; people are leaving’
— that whole narrative. ...

This race was a chance to have a real policy debate about our state,
and I don’t think that happened.”

Blame the short attention span of voters. Blame a diminished political press corps. Blame a contest that managed to captivate very few Californians. Blame hairsplitting among generally like-minded Democrats and the lack of any real GOP competition to spur a deep and meaningful discussion.

Even as Schiff coasts to election, Porter said:
“I hope Adam will go back to some of the policies that were really important in the Senate race
— whether that was #housing, whether that was the #environment, #energy, whether that was #taxes
— and try to have some of those conversations and arrive in the Senate really willing to think about

‘What does California need from Washington?’”

Congress is a lumbering beast of a place,
deeply polarized and highly antagonistic,
and Porter said there’s little desire by leaders of either major party to fix that.

“My colleagues want to talk
— and you will hear them talk this fall, whether it’s Congressman Schiff running for the Senate, or a House candidate or Vice President Harris
— they want to talk endlessly about the crisis of confidence in the #Supreme #Court,” Porter said.

“What about the #crisis of #confidence in us,
in #Congress,
and who we work for and how effective we are?

That’s a conversation worth having, too.”

(There’s a reason Porter was no favorite of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who threw her considerable clout behind Schiff in the Senate primary.)

For now, Porter is looking forward to returning to the classroom in January
— her face lit up at the mention of standing in front of students again
— taking up her old position at UC Irvine.

She’ll teach a first-year law class and courses on commercial law and legislation.

She hasn’t ruled out a future run for statewide office
— Porter could be a formidable candidate for attorney general or governor
— but feels no haste to decide.

(By contrast, she was the first to jump in to the Senate race, even before the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein had stated her intention to step aside.)

Porter reprimanded the nearly half dozen gubernatorial hopefuls who’ve already launched their campaigns.

“Between now and election day, in my opinion, nobody should be campaigning for governor,” Porter said.

Democrats, quite rightly, insist that Donald Trump poses an existential threat to democracy and that the party must do all it can to stop him.

“If you believe that”
— here Porter brandished a fist
— “then that’s what we should all be working on right now.”

Not jockeying in an election still more than two years off.

At 50, still in the blush of youth by today’s silvered political standards, Porter has plenty of highway ahead of her.

https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2024-08-11/katie-porter-political-future-california-senate-orange-county