A couple of days ago, three-term congresswoman Katie Porter lit a new spark in the political press when she announced her bid for the Senate. Katie Porter, who appears to be the only living person known to successfully mix left-wing economic populism with white suburban mom energy, is definitely shooting for a goal most politicians with her short experience would not feel comfortable trying. Four years in politics is like the blink of eye, but Katie Porter owns the patent on her magical skill of holding corporations to account in House committees with her magical white board and witty math. Her risky bid for the Senate, which would leave her out of Congress if she is to lose, underscores just how valuable the political real estate of that Senate seat actually is.
California’s Class 1 senate seat, which is due for an election in 2024, is currently held by Dianne Feinstein. Dianne Feinstein is a fantastic woman, best known for taking the lead as the top democrat on the Senate Intel Committee in the investigation of extreme wrongdoings by the Bush administration regarding torture and illegal spying - but she is legitimately senile - basically what republicans think Joe Biden is, but it's actually real. She will sometimes receive briefings from her staff after eating breakfast, go to a committee meeting, come back for lunch, and forget she talked with her own staffers. She recently had to decline the job as Senate pro temp after Patrick Leahy’s retirement because it would put a senile woman in line to be President if something happened to Biden, Harris, and Kevin McCarthy, or whichever depraved soul gets his job of being in charge of the House GOP after the right-wing successfully passes the motion-to-vacate.
Unfortunately for a lot of California Democrats, they were denied the opportunity to compete for Kamala Harris’ senate seat when she left because California Secretary of State Alex Padilla, as good of a guy as he is, got to circumvent his own voters and get a seat for free with an appointment by Gavin Newsom. (Side note: The looney-tunes wing of the Democratic Party created a lot of Fox News-style fake outrage about this appointment, such as San Francisco Mayor London Breed’s anger that the replacement wasn’t black. I’m sorry, but for a state that’s 40% Latino, Padilla was the best individual who represented California as a whole - especially considering he was not elected to a House seat representing 1/53rd of Californians, but rather won two statewide races in a row. Plus, maybe you should stop driving a wedge with moderate voters because you focus too much on a candidate’s skin color, and instead, you should look more on the fact that Padilla supports policies that benefit poor black folks. As Secretary of State, he expanded voting access, and votes for bills that support the right to vote for minorities.)
So with Padilla’s seat gone for likely the next 20 or so years (unless someone puts him on their presidential ticket), there’s one California senate seat floating in the ocean, and every California democrat is eying it like a pack of sharks. There are so many well-known democrats in California that might jump to take the seat after Katie Porter's announcement, including:
1. Adam Schiff, House Member
2. Ro Khanna, House Member
3. Barbara Lee, House Member (although she’s much older)
4. Xavier Beccerra, HHS Secretary (who wouldn’t have to worry about giving up his office)
5. Rob Bonita, California A.G.
6. London Breed, SF Mayor
7. Eric Garcetti, LA Mayor
8. Eleni Kounalakis, CA Lieu. Gov.
9. Shirley Weber, CA Sec. State.
10. Todd Gloria, SD Mayor
All these people are well-known in the state of California, and some of them are beloved for their work, such as Ro Khanna's amazing work in the Progressive Caucus constructing the Build Back Better bill that was the framework for the Inflation Reduction Act, and Adam Schiff’s leadership as an impeachment manager. This race, especially if even half of the people on this list run, will turn into a spectacle. Good guys vs good guys, with storied political careers on the line. If that wasn’t enough, California elections use the "jungle primary", where the top two finishers, regardless of party, advance to the general election. If the race generates enough interest and high turnout, two democrats might advance to the general election without a republican on the ballot, and fight again in a 1 on 1 progressive battle to the death. Imagine Adam Schiff vs Katie Porter on your ballot in a general election - it would be gut-wrenching to try and figure out who to vote for.
The D.C. political press has lately been describing Katie Porter's run for the Senate as a "MASSIVE LIABILITY" for the democrats, which is just a big pile of bullshit. Any time news outlets like Politico and CNN can run a story that fits with the "Dems in Disarray" narrative, they pump it out like a fucking factory. The inside-the-beltway argument guiding this theory can be broken down into two assertions. First, Katie Porter can raise money like a motherfucker, and it will draw too much attention (and therefore, money) away from the most vulnerable senate democrats in 2024, such as Brown, Tester, and Manchin. Second, Katie Porter's House district is a swing district, and leaving it vacant would open up an opportunity for republicans to snatch it at a time when democrats are aiming to pick up five (and we definitely want more than just the minimum) seats to regain the House in 2024.
Let's debunk that theory real quick: First off, the 2024 general election will be a presidential election, and the most likely scenario is another rematch between the king of Mar-a-Lardo, Donald Trump, and President Biden. The presidential election will be sucking up so much oxygen from the political atmosphere that it is completely illogical to assume that a senate primary in a state Biden won by 30 points in 2020 will attract anybody other than people already living in California, or media inside their bubble. Second, if Katie Porter, or another democrat with a fundraising juggernaut, wins their primary, they will either be facing a republican in the general election or another democrat. If they're facing a republican, they can move their entire stockpile of grassroots money and funnel it to democrats in swing states who need it to hold the Senate. Katie Porter's district might be just barely light-blue, and her run for Senate would create a small risk of Republican opportunity, but her run for Senate will actually be extremely beneficial for House democrats, not a liability. California is a safe state, therefore making voting as a Californian in the presidential election almost pointless. As a result, many low-propensity California voters, especially working class minorities, avoid voting altogether because they do not feel it serves any purpose. That may be true in the electoral college, but their absence from the polls results in republicans winning valuable House seats in California. If two popular, high-profile democrats are running against each other in a general election, it will draw so much new attention in the state that liberal voters will feel that their vote will actually matter in 2024. They will turn out to vote for their favorite democrat for Senate, and then they will pull the lever for a democrat challenging a vulnerable House republican. Yes, winning the Senate by defending red-state democrats with a firewall of money is crucial for a successful second-term of Biden's presidency - but we also need a Speaker Hakeem Jeffries, and flipping two, three, maybe even four extra House seats in California because of high turnout generated from the Senate race, is a terrific investment.
One glaring reality can’t be overlooked as to why this race is going to be so competitive. Our Constitution, built for a country in the 18th century, before we had railroads and running water, still gives each state two senators, and lets governors appoint senators during vacancies for free (By the way, the Founding Fathers never meant for vacancies to resolve this way. Before we elected senators, the governor would appoint a senator for a 2-4 week stopgap if a vacancy happened so the state could have a voice, but the legislature would re-convene almost immediately and elect someone else. But the writers of the 17th Amendment just didn’t take the time and effort to come up with a better solution and gave us this idiotic policy of governors picking senators for years worth of time.) Half of the 40 million people of California’s voice in the Senate was decided by the whims of Gavin Newsom, and the other half will be for a singular senate seat. Meanwhile, the Commonwealth of the Flyover Sanctuary of Cow Manure, also known as South Dakota, and the Anarcho-capitalist syndicate of the Great Plains of Yellow Snow and Frosted Road Kill, also known as North Dakota, get four senators for simply existing, and having been split in half by a republican congress to increase their number of senators. Meanwhile, California’s plethora of elected leaders from 40 million people worth of congressional districts and city governments must all compete for one goddamn seat.
If the Senate was actually proportional, California would have twelve senate seats, a very fair number, as its population is 12% of the country. And it would have enough senate seats to accommodate the overflowing bench of democrats waiting to take power. Here’s what a proportional senate map of California would look like:
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