Letters to the Editor

Fresh off November election win in 47th, Porter sets sights on Feinstein Senate bid in 2024

Some interesting national news that directly affects Newport and Laguna Beach was made public (Tuesday) when our congresswoman, Katie Porter, threw her hat into the ring to announce her candidature for the Senate seat of octogenarian Diane Feinstein. Although Diane Feinstein has not yet announced her retirement, speculation is mounting that she most likely will.

Katie Porter who became our congresswoman as a result of the redistributing of the 47th district in 2020, which includes Huntington Beach, Seal Beach, Laguna Beach, as well as Newport Beach, is not known for her timidity. In fact, she has built a national reputation for standing up to Wall Street, pharmaceutical companies, oil and gas giants and corporate lobbyists. She is one of just 10 members of Congress who doesn’t take a cent of corporate PAC or federal lobbyist money.

At the beginning of the pandemic, Porter successfully got the Trump Administration in March 2020 to commit to free COVID testing for every American. Perhaps she is best known for standing up for American families by badgering the head of companies and banks for their corporate greed that she vividly demonstrated on her professorial whiteboards, holding the banks’ feet to the fire and winning thousands of victories against the banks, forcing them to pay California families billions.

Before running for Congress, Porter was a law professor at UC Irvine where she specialized in consumer protection law. She was also appointed as California’s Independent Monitor of Big Banks following the foreclosure crisis.

While there was criticism of her announcement to run for Feinstein’s Senate seat before she had even announced her retirement, it was noted in a national newspaper that Porter intends to run whether she does or doesn’t. Others thought it insensitive of her to announce her candidature while California was getting battered by the biggest winter storm in recent history. But national and local tragedies do not often stop political events or calculations, as we so painfully observed during the pandemic, and in typical aggressive form, Katie Porter does not shy away from her important political decision. Instead, she says that the storm “illustrates the dire risks facing the nation from climate change” and the need for federal action.

Besides, she has other concerns that will affect the election in 2024, and that is the reality that several stellar candidates will be making up her opposition, among them most notably Representative Adam B. Schiff. Her participation in the senatorial election means that Newport Beach, Laguna Beach and other coastal cities will have an open congressional seat for the 47th District and the drama over the speculation of who will be running for that seat will soon be upon us. (I can almost anticipate those brain cogs turning.)

Lynn Lorenz

Newport Beach