What would Katie Porter do as California’s U.S. senator?

Katie Porter wants to convince California voters that she is a new breed of politician Washington, D.C., desperately needs.

A firebrand in Congress often with a whiteboard in hand, the Orange County Democrat has garnered national attention for grilling corporate executives during legislative hearings and challenging leaders within her own party. Her outspoken and blunt style helped her first flip a Republican congressional seat in 2018 and keep that seat for two terms.

Can it help her enough now to become California’s next U.S. senator?

Porter is competing with two other Democratic members of Congress, Adam Schiff and Barbara Lee, in the March 5 primary. They share largely similar voting records, though Porter has taken slightly different stances at times on issues such as foreign policies and immigration.

To get in the top two and advance to November, she also faces a challenge from Republican former baseball star Steve Garvey, who is tied with her for second place in some recent polls.

Porter’s campaign has proposed ambitious overhauls on ethics and housing, but her confrontation of Democratic leaders could work against her attempts to get legislation passed. Porter is not concerned, pointing to her posts on congressional subcommittees and her past role as the deputy chairperson of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. 

“These relationships are forged on respect. They are forged on the ability of someone to get things done,” she said. 

In an hour-long interview Thursday with CalMatters via Zoom, Porter answered questions on a variety of issues. Here are some highlights:

Keeping out corporate influence

Porter is leaning into her record of having never accepted money from corporate-run political action committees — although she, like Lee and Schiff, has not rejected other forms of corporate-linked money. She has declined to request earmarked federal funding for her district, arguing it breeds corruption even as critics countered that not doing so is a dereliction of duty.

“Corporate interest” is Porter’s buzzword. According to her, it is why Congress has not raised the federal minimum wage, passed gun control laws, reformed the campaign finance system or approved labor-friendly legislation such as the Protecting the Right to Organize Act — “because corporate America will literally spend hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars, aggregating maybe even to $1 billion or more, to try to block this legislation,” Porter said.

In her “Shake up the Senate” plan, Porter lists ambitious proposals to ban corporate PACs and federal lobbyists from making political contributions, ban members of Congress from trading stocks and overturning the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, which prohibited the government from regulating unions’ and corporations’ political spending.

But what would it take to pass all those measures, given that similar legislation has gone nowhere? Porter said it would require both reforming the Supreme Court and more members of Congress rejecting corporate PAC contributions. 

She contended it would not be easy: “We can do this, but it’s about a norm change. …We need to change our conduct. We need to change voters’ expectations.”

‘Preventing’ homelessness

Porter said she plans to vote for Proposition 1 — Gov. Gavin Newsom’s $6.4 billion bond measure that would fund more housing and mental health treatment facilities and redistribute tax revenue collected from high earners for mental health services.

But, she said, the proposal — as well as the state’s controversial CARE Court program — “pit” those trying to help homeless people “against each other” in a fight for resources.

Porter said while more federal funding is necessary, she supports investing those dollars into homelessness prevention, such as rent assistance programs, eviction protections or outpatient treatment programs.

Does she support local governments’ authority to clear out encampments? Porter said it is an “excruciating choice” to make. Local governments should be able to keep traffic intersections and playgrounds safe, she said, but oversight is necessary to ensure there’s adequate housing.

Conditions on foreign aid

Porter said she would support the $95 billion deal the Senate passed to provide aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, stressing it is important the bill include humanitarian aid to Gaza residents.

“Supporting democracy abroad keeps our democracy safe and strong here at home,” she said.

But there should never be “unconditional aid” to foreign countries, and the U.S. should develop a uniform policy on when to withhold foreign aid to others, she said. There needs to be “safeguards” to hold America’s global allies accountable and ensure the U.S.’s military assistance doesn’t go too far, she said.

“I don’t think there should be any exceptions, period,” she said.

Split with Biden on immigration

While largely defending the actions of President Joe Biden’s administration, Porter dissented on some of his immigration policies.

She said she does not support the bipartisan deal between some U.S. senators and the White House to impose tougher asylum and border regulations and give the president emergency authority to shut down the border. 

“That so-called immigration deal was not the right policy for California, not the right policy for the economy and not the right policy for us in terms of our role worldwide,” she said.

Instead, she has supported more resources to staff entry points and immigration courts, using technology to detect border crossings and site-specific border barriers.

Additionally, Porter said it would be wrong for Biden to shut down the southern border, which he had promised to do if necessary.

“Policies that completely shut the border, that eliminate any ability for anyone to seek humanitarian parole or asylum, they end up keeping and trapping the most vulnerable migrants,” she said.

The zero-emission goal

In efforts to combat climate change, California has led the way while federal laws have often lagged behind, Porter said.

That’s unfair to the state’s taxpayers and families, she said, and California’s goal to ban all sales of gas-powered cars by 2035 is a “potential example.”

Porter said the state must build out electric charging stations and recognize the “equity issues” as it phases out gas-powered cars. “The highest emissions come from the oldest vehicles often driven by working-class, minimum-wage workers who have the longest commutes,” she said.

“So helping someone get a Tesla that they drive one mile from work to their condo is not nearly the climate solution as taking off a 25-year-old Honda that’s being driven 75 or 90 miles each way, each day, from the Central Valley into the Bay area.”