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is born, perhaps, of her own modest roots. She grew
up on a farm in Iowa, where her father was a farmer
turned banker and her mother founded a magazine
and a public-television show about quilting. With
the help of scholarships and student loans, Porter
attended Yale as an undergraduate and Harvard for
law school. Between the two endeavors, she taught
eighth-grade math. That’s when she discovered
what she calls the “performative art to teaching”—a
skill she employs today, whiteboard in tow, at House
Financial Services Committee hearings. As a single
mom and a domestic- abuse survivor, she has seen
firsthand the value of government- funded benefits.
She says she wouldn’t have made it to Washing-
ton without access to free public education for her
children. “There is no room in my budget to pay for
private school,” she says. “Knowing that my kids
are safe, that they’re learning and building good life
skills in public school, makes this job possible.”
Like many single moms, she is adept at multi-
tasking. Shortly into our conversation, still folding
clothes, the Congresswoman jumps onto a virtual
briefing on racial justice and policing. When a GOP
colleague mentions “the gentleman who died in
Minnesota,” she holds up a handmade sign scrawled
on a wrinkled piece of paper: Say hiS name.
GeorGe Floyd. It’s a hallmark Porter move. She’s
unwilling to let a teachable moment pass, says Josh
Mandelbaum, one of Porter’s former law students.
“She didn’t treat her students any differently than
she treated a CEO in front of Congress,” he recalls.
“She expected you to be prepared.”
As a progressive Democrat who supports more
accessible health care and fewer accessible guns,
she’s not necessarily a natural fit for her California
district, which has elected Republicans to the House
since it was created in 1983. In 2018, her narrow,
4-point victory was partially the result of a recent
influx of new Latino and Asian voters, who tend to
vote Democratic. But Porter suggests her appeal is
also the result of her style. As a natural teacher, she’s
driven by facts, fairness and, she says, “calling peo-
ple out for what they’re saying when it doesn’t make
any sense.” It’s a message of accountability that
she’s willing to deliver to even the most formidable
power brokers in Washington. “I’m not letting them
off the hook, because I believe in democracy,” she
says, “because I believe in government.” □
‘Fully
prepared.
Ready
to go.
Leaning
forward.’
SENATOR
ELIZABETH
WARREN,
describing
Porter, her
former student
at Harvard
Law School
ERIN SCHAFF—THE NEW YORK TIMES/REDUX
