Katie Porter
Katherine Moore Porter (born January 3, 1974) is an American politician, law professor, and lawyer who is the U.S. representative from California's 47th congressional district since 2023, previously representing the 45th congressional district from 2019 to 2023. She is the first Democrat to be elected to represent the 45th district, covering much of south-central Orange County, including Irvine, Tustin, and Lake Forest along with large portions of Anaheim and Laguna Niguel. Porter was reelected in 2022 in the newly redistricted 47th congressional district. Porter graduated from Yale University and Harvard Law School and has taught law at several universities, including the University of California, Irvine, William S. Boyd School of Law, and University of Iowa. She is deputy chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and has received media attention for her questioning during congressional hearings. Porter declined to seek reelection to the United States House of Representatives in 2024 and became a candidate in the 2024 United States Senate election in California. Early life and education Porter was born on January 3, 1974, in Fort Dodge, Iowa. She grew up on a farm in southern Iowa. Her father, Dan Porter, was a farmer-turned-banker. Her mother, Liz, was a founder of Fons & Porter's Love of Quilting. After graduating from Phillips Academy, Porter attended Yale University, where she majored in American studies, graduating in 1996. Her undergraduate thesis was titled The Effects of Corporate Farming on Rural Community. She was a member of Grace Hopper College (then called Calhoun College) at Yale. Porter also interned for Chuck Grassley during this time. Porter later attended Harvard Law School, where she was the notes editor for the Harvard Women's Law Journal and a member of the Board of Student Advisers. She studied under bankruptcy law professor and future U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, and graduated magna cum laude with her Juris Doctor in 2001. Career Porter was a law clerk for Judge Richard S. Arnold of the United States Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit in Little Rock, Arkansas. She practiced with the law firm of Stoel Rives LLP in Portland, Oregon, and was the project director for the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges' Business Bankruptcy Project. Porter was an associate professor of law at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas School of Law. In 2005, she joined the faculty of the University of Iowa College of Law as an associate professor, becoming a full professor there in 2011. Also in 2011, she became a tenured professor at the University of California, Irvine School of Law. Porter's textbook Modern Consumer Law addresses consumer laws in light of Dodd–Frank and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. In March 2012, California Attorney General Kamala Harris appointed Porter to be the state's independent monitor of banks in a nationwide $25 billion mortgage settlement. As monitor, she oversaw the banks' implementation of $9.5 billion in settlement reforms for Californians. U.S. House of Representatives Elections 2018 In the 2018 elections, Porter ran for the United States House of Representatives