“It’s a teaching and learning job”
Candidates and officials could be using powers they don’t know they have for doing good, Rep. Katie Porter (D-Calif.) argues. The American Prospect profiles the candidate for U.S. Senate from California:
The tough-as-nails single-mom image caters to the legions of suburban parents in the Golden State. But what actually differentiates Porter from her main opponents in the California Senate race—progressive antiwar hero Rep. Barbara Lee and Trump impeachment manager Rep. Adam Schiff—is that she’s been able throughout her career to make progress without carrying institutional authority. Porter acknowledged that she, Lee, and Schiff would likely take the same votes, at least on the major issues. But there’s more to politics than that. “I just want to fix some shit,” Porter writes in her book. “The job of a candidate should be to make their case for what they’ll do with that power.”
Porter, a former college professor, became known for her white-board dressing-downs of prominent CEOs and government officials, David Dayen writes:
But to me, her signature moment was at a hearing in 2020, days into the pandemic, with then-Centers for Disease Control director Robert Redfield. Porter’s staff found a provision in the federal code (42 CFR § 71.30, to be precise) enabling the CDC to offer free diagnostic testing for infectious diseases, regardless of insurance status. To that point, CDC had not offered COVID tests for free.
When Redfield wavered, Porter interrupted. “No, not good enough. Dr. Redfield, you have the existing authority. Will you commit right now to using the authority that you have, vested in you, under law?” She pummeled Redfield until he agreed to make testing free. The hundreds of millions of COVID tests sent through the mail, one of the more quietly successful efforts of the past few years, sprung from Porter knowing the law and pressing at a hearing.
That’s a signature example of picking up unused power. Porter says in the book that the real work of Congress lies in civic education, to let the public into the policymaking process. But the Redfield incident suggests that extends to civic education for government officials, who often have no sense of their own power. Congress willingly gives up war powers authority to the executive branch. Statutes around for decades sit dormant, from the ability for the government to seize prescription drug patents if prices are too high, to the law passed thirteen years ago prohibiting banker compensation that’s tied to taking inappropriate risks, which the regulators simply never wrote.
Porter has a bipartisan bill that would claw back “unjust” compensation from bank executives whose institutions fail. But even if it passed, the regulatory system has been reluctant to punish the wealthy and powerful. It’s a rare skill for a politician to know that the press conference the day the bill passes isn’t the end of the fight.
Porter means to govern. She wants “to fix some shit.” In Washington, D.C., of all places. She thinks that’s what she’s been hired for.
What a refreshing notion.