After 180 years of male governors, why Katie Porter is California's moment

For nearly 180 years, California has elected men — and only men — to its highest office. This June, voters have a chance to change that. The Sacramento Bee Editorial Board, joined by the broader McClatchy California Editorial Board, is endorsing former Rep. Katie Porter for governor.

The endorsement, also published in The Modesto Bee, The Fresno Bee, Merced Sun-Star and The Tribune of San Luis Obispo, is striking not only for whom it names, but for how directly it confronts the gendered terrain Porter is navigating — and the generational shift her candidacy represents.

Three reasons for Porter — and why now.

The board conducted one-on-one interviews with all the major Democrats in the race and with Republican Steve Hilton. Republican Chad Bianco declined to meet. Porter’s interview, the board wrote, was by far the most impressive.

Three reasons stand out in the endorsement.

The first is competence and command. She has, the board wrote, “the singular ability to uplift Californians struggling with how expensive and exclusive this state has become.”

The second is lived experience. Porter is a single mother of three. She does not have to study “kitchen table economics” from cue cards; she lives them.

The third is her stance on money in politics. Porter has refused donations from corporate political action committees, federal lobbyists and executives in the banking, pharmaceutical and oil and gas industries.

A candidate who actually lives the math

For renters squeezed by California’s cost of living, Porter’s pitch lands differently than the rest.

Porter’s signature campaign promise is to eliminate the state income tax for Californians earning under $100,000. For a renter or young professional in Sacramento, that isn’t an abstraction. It’s hundreds — potentially thousands — of dollars a year staying in your account instead of getting routed to the state. It’s a direct response to the income inequality that, as Porter has argued, is rotting away at the economy and at democracy itself.

The “unlikable” problem, named plainly

The endorsement does something many endorsements do not: It calls out the double standard Porter faces by name.

Porter, the board wrote, “suffers only from the same, tired charge levied against every woman in politics — that she can be unlikable.” She has been dismissed on social media, interrupted and shouted over in candidate debates. Some voters, the board acknowledged, “might even dismiss her because she is a woman and because a woman has never been elected governor in California.”

The “unlikable” critique has long functioned as a catchall for women who are direct, prepared and unafraid to challenge powerful interests — qualities that, in male candidates, are often rebranded as strength.

No corporate cash

Porter has steadfastly refused donations from corporate political action committees, federal lobbyists or executives from the banking, pharmaceutical or oil and gas industries.

Distance from monied interests has undoubtedly cost Porter support she might have had by now if she played the same money game. That’s also exactly why she can credibly take on the industries driving up costs for everyone else.

We do not and cannot endorse billionaire philanthropist Tom Steyer in the June primary. He has bought his way into contention by spending roughly $200 million of his own money. At a time when affordability is the top issue facing Californians, we don’t believe electing a billionaire to govern us is the right decision.

Why Porter, on the merits

Porter identified the right enemy. She put income inequality at the center of her diagnosis — not as a rhetorical flourish, but as the engine corroding California’s economy. The other candidates gestured at affordability. Porter named the structural cause.

Her policy ideas follow from that diagnosis:

Tax relief aimed at the middle. The aforementioned elimination of state income tax for Californians earning under $100,000 — a direct intervention in the affordability crisis. Housing supply, unblocked. She would push legislation to stop local permitting delays, support new construction techniques and commit state land and infrastructure to affordable housing. California needs roughly 2.5 million new homes over the next eight years to meet demand. Without supply, every other affordability fix is rounding error. Homelessness prevention first. Porter understands that the cheapest intervention is keeping people housed in the first place — through emergency rental assistance, rapid re-housing and interim shelter — before tackling the longer affordable-housing build-out. This is not abstract for her. Her political career began representing Californians during the foreclosure crisis, helping thousands stay in their homes.

The Democratic Party, the board wrote, is “desperately clinging to gerontocracy” and has a “regrettable history of protecting politicians who serve long enough to die in office.” Porter, at 52, “represents the new guard.”

Porter would, the board concluded, take on President Donald Trump, push back on federal incursions and confront California’s intersecting crises of affordability, homelessness and housing.

After nearly 180 years, the board added, “Madam Governor” has a nice ring to it.