Westside Voice acknowledges that California Democrats enjoy an abundance of riches in three great candidates for the United States Senate this year for the seat once held by Dianne Feinstein. Representative Adam Schiff is a bona fide national hero. We also admire Representative Barbara Lee, a proven progressive who was the lone vote against initiating our two decades of war in the Middle East.

However, our choice for the Senate is middle-class champion Katie Porter of Orange County. Let’s talk about why, looking briefly at the other candidates.

Adam Schiff has been representing the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena area admirably for 20 years. But it wasn’t until Donald Trump’s rampant corruption and national security lapses that Schiff really rose to national prominence, aggressively and quite articulately taking on Trump as his sycophantic allies in Congress. We admire Schiff’s measured albeit steely reserve. There is no doubt he is a champion of democracy and the rule of law.

But for many years prior, Schiff was simply an amiable, moderate Democrat in the House. And while we see him as a respectable member of the Senate Judiciary and perhaps Intelligence Committees, we also view him as at most a two-term Senator who will forge a more traditional path, admirably building bi-partisan relationships with whatever reasonable Republicans might be left (hint: None), and largely not moving the U.S. Senate out of its comfortable, overly gentile, and country club shell.

In Barbara Lee, California has a wonderful, historic opportunity to elect its first Black female to the U.S. Senate. But in July of 2025, her first year in office, she will turn 79 years old. We are not an ageist publication. But Lee is very likely to be a one-term Senator.

We’re looking for a progressive who will be around a good while and make a real impact on the way the U.S. Senate works and sees the world, especially everyday people. We have that in Katie Porter.

Porter, who just turned 50 this month and could easily serve a solid four terms if she wishes, was once a former student of Senator Elizabeth Warren and has followed Warren’s path to holding big corporations’ feet to the fire on many consumer issues important to the lives of middle-class families. It was Porter who, during the financial crisis of 2008, was appointed Independent Monitor of the big banks and helped ensure middle-class families impacted by foreclosure received billions in damages.

Since her election to the House in 2018, in an Orange County district once held by Republicans, Porter began to ruffle feathers immediately on the House Financial Services Committee, often using a whiteboard to draw out statistics during hearings. She made fools of out-of-touch CEOs and corporate shills, always knowing more about their corporate misdeeds and relating them to our rigged economy than they would care to admit.

Her reward for that? Committee Chair Maxine Waters didn’t like the show stolen from her and asked Speaker Pelosi to have her removed from the committee. Not a bright spot in the career of our beloved former Speaker or “Auntie” Maxine.

Porter’s drive and sense of justice stems in part from her growing up on her family’s Iowa farm and witnessing firsthand banks siding with their self-interest at the cost of family farmers. A single mom of three kids, the license plate on the family minivan famously reads, “OVRSITE.”

On policy, we have no doubt each of the three candidates will deliver on base Democratic Party values. But only Porter, and admittedly Lee, will challenge the Democratic Party to lean further left and challenge some of the entrenched interests that the party became cozier with in the late 1980s and 1990s to re-establish middle-of-the-road relevance.

Porter is the only candidate in the race who has never taken PAC money, money from lobbyists, or most industries with a “Big ____” disparagingly added to their trade. And while Porter doesn’t come from an unprivileged background – her mother became something of a “crafting magnate” and Porter was always able to afford elite private schools, she clearly shows through word and deed her heart is with middle-class families and against big corporations who she says “Have too much power in our economy.”

Here is a sample of policy positions Porter has taken and vows to fight for that we admire, and trust her dogged persistence to follow through with:

• Ban Members of Congress from accepting donations from registered lobbyists
• Ban Members of Congress from buying and trading stocks
• Abolishing the Filibuster, which is a ridiculous, anti-progressive measure that isn’t even listed in the U.S. Constitution
• Implement an enforceable Code of Ethics for Supreme Court Justices
• Crack down on corporate monopolies and institute a system of competition in our markets
• Send mental health professionals rather than police officers to help those in a medical or mental health crisis
• Ban assault weapons and implement universal background checks
• Regulating guns like any other consumer product and removing the gun industry’s legal liability protections
• Ensure polluters – not taxpayers – fit the bill for toxic pollution and other climate wrongs they commit
• Invest in mass transit to lower emissions
• Crack down on insurers who have been refusing or dropping coverage for those affected by natural disasters
• Enact Medicare for All
• Pass a massive Federal investment in affordable and working-class housing to assist with the housing crisis in California
• Ensure every California who qualifies for housing assistance can receive it by fully funding Section 8 Housing Vouchers

And of course so many more. She isn’t the only one of the three Democrats to adopt some of these policies – but she is on others. And I don’t trust anyone to fight harder to push the envelope than Porter.

If the biggest criticisms of Porter are that she seems too intellectually aligned to academic liberals and is tough on her staff … then we would like you to meet most members of the United States House and Senate.

Again, voters are spoiled with three terrific Democratic candidates. But the potential length of her term in the Senate, fearlessness, progressivism, and enviable (infuriating to some) ability to attract attention and get her message out is what we believe will truly shake up the Senate and force her colleagues to start paying attention to the needs of the vast majority of their constituents – not their donors.

We’re supporting Katie Porter for the Senate, and we hope you join us in doing so for the March 5 Primary Election.

Photo is Katie Porter’s Personal Twitter Account Profile Picture