Juggling Lessons From Katie Porter

By Lisa Lerer Politics Newsletter Writer

I’m not going to sugarcoat it: The news is grim.

Last night, government scientists predicted that 100,000 to 240,000 Americans could die as a result of the coronavirus — and that’s the best-case projection. New reporting today says that the economic recession from the virus could last into next year, or even longer. In the middle of all that worry, we have to keep muddling through our suddenly isolated lives. Get dressed (#leggingsforever), cook some food, home-school the kids, clean our houses and, if possible, try to make a living or maybe ask for help for the first time. That juggle isn’t easy for anyone, even for members of Congress. Representative Katie Porter, a freshman Democrat from California, has become one of the most visible lawmakers during the coronavirus crisis. Her dogged questioning of Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, secured a pledge of free coronavirus testing for all Americans. Ms. Porter is also the only single mother in Congress, a position that leaves her in charge of distance learning at home for three school-age children while helping with the national response at work. Last week, she was self-quarantining after experiencing symptoms associated with the virus. We talked to her about her daily routine of hours of conference calls, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and members of Congress who can’t figure out how to unmute their phones. (As always, our conversation has been edited and condensed.) Hey, Congresswoman, how are you? You recently had a coronavirus scare, right? I did. I tested negative, which was a big relief. Most importantly, I’m feeling better. One of the things that the doctor said to me, which I thought was interesting — he said: “Well, I want you to be aware that there are false negatives. Because you had a fever, we want you to treat this the same as we would if it was positive.” I wanted to ask what precautions you were taking to avoid the virus, but I guess maybe those didn’t work so well? Congress members from far away — people like me, who take two plane rides, three airports, and I’m in two Ubers — I mean, that’s a lot of contact in the day, plus the time zones and the exhaustion. The vote that we took two weeks ago was in the middle of the night, like, 1 in the morning. So it’s important to try to take care of yourself in the same way that we’re asking everyone to do right now, while you’re trying to do your job. You’re a single mom with three kids. What does self-quarantining look like in your house? For the first couple of days, it looked like a lot of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and my kids shouting at me through the door. Once my boyfriend got here, I just kept the bedroom door closed. And he would come in, bring a tray of food, and leave. But it’s hard. That’s the perspective of single moms and single dads and what self-quarantine is going to mean for them. It is something I haven’t heard a lot of talk about. I got sick on Thursday night. I had a little bit of a cold before that, but by Thursday night I felt really terrible. And I called the doctor on the nurse’s line on Friday morning and they told me to isolate in my room. Don’t leave your room, have someone bring you food. And I said, “Well, I can’t do that. I’m a single mom. There’s no one to get the food. There’s no one.” And the nurse was great. She’s like, “OK, then what we’re going to do is we’re going to pretend your children all have symptoms too,” and so the whole household is self-quarantined. You have a big job. You also have the kids. Walk me through what your day looks like now. The school district has done a great job, but it was overwhelming. I have three kids in three different grades. At one point, I wrote to my kid’s school principal, and I said, “So sorry to bother you, but could you ask that the teachers put what grade level they’re talking about in these emails?” I don’t even know which student they’re talking about. Because I’m in California time, the second I wake up, I am already three hours behind in many ways, in catching up with what’s happening in D.C. I spend most of my day on the phone, especially these last few days. I’m averaging between five and seven hours of conference calls a day. Wow. Really? Yeah, for example, yesterday, I talked to a company that has a drug in the trial pipeline that might be useful for Covid, and so we wanted to send that along to the right government authorities for them to review. I had a call with religious leaders, talking with them both about their work in getting their members to participate in the census, but also about what this pandemic and shelter-in-place order is meaning for our faith communities, particularly with things like Passover and Ramadan coming up. Press interviews to try to explain things to people. I just had a call with some labor leaders this morning, talking with them about what’s going on with their members. Some of those workers — and I’m talking a lot about doctors and nurses and their protective equipment, which is incredibly important — but grocery store workers, pharmacy workers, they need personal protective equipment too. How are you keeping in touch with what’s happening in Congress? I’ve had a lot of conversations with my Democratic colleagues. Most of the colleagues I work with are freshmen — that mostly goes on via text. But with the whole group, these large group conference calls, there will be anywhere between 50 to 200 members on the line. I listened to six and a half hours of these calls on Wednesday. The most common thing I learned is that people need to unmute their phone if they want to speak. So the most common repeated message from leadership wasn’t, “We’re all going to be OK,” it was, “You might have to unmute your phone.” So there’s a real need for Congress to improve our technological capacity, improve our procedures. Two weeks ago I read a letter — I personally whipped over 50 members to support remote voting. I’m worried about all of my colleagues who traveled [to vote for the economic bill last week]. I’m grateful that they were willing to do that and that they’re well enough that they were able to do that. But we’re asking businesses and schools to come up with remote learning plans and new technology, facilitate remote work and allow people to stay home if they’re sick. And Congress is creating exceptions for themselves. The mark of a good leader is to lead by example. Obviously, you were not there last week to vote on the economic legislation. Would you have voted for this package? Yes, I would have. There’s important things in the package that just can’t wait. The unemployment insurance, the extension of unemployment benefits, the increase of unemployment benefits, the $100 billion to hospitals and providers, the FEMA disaster relief funds, the additional funds to local governments, the stimulus checks — I wish they were bigger but there’s a lot here that urgently needs to happen. But there are parts of this bill that are a concern to me and then there’s a lot of stuff that’s missing. Like what? How we’re going to do oversight of what’s happening is going to be really important during this pandemic. So it’s not enough to just pass the law; you have to make sure that the law is helping people in real life. And I’m really concerned about the $500 billion Treasury fund. The Treasury works fast. The oversight panel doesn’t have to issue its first report until 30 days after the Treasury secretary takes action. What the Treasury secretary is doing should be breaking news, not the History Channel. So we’ve got to have that panel set up immediately and we’ve got to put people on that panel who know how to do oversight work, who understand financial markets, who understand corporate governance and investor laws, who understand corporate debt, who are pro-worker. Another one of the things that House Democrats wanted in the bill was to direct OSHA [the Occupational Safety and Health Administration] to issue an emergency regulation within seven days describing what personal protective equipment or what workplace protections front-line essential workers need. That did not get put in the bill. If we were having hearings, we could be hauling in the head of OSHA right now and asking why they aren’t doing this. It doesn’t take an act of Congress to issue that regulation; OSHA can do it. But not if we don’t hold their feet to the fire. Legislation isn’t the only tool in the tool kit. Rank and file members get things done by using their voices in hearings, by meeting with their communities and constituents and distributing resources or help. And so that stuff needs to get going. Can I ask you one more personal question? How have you explained this crisis to your own kids? This is sort of both humorous and sad. When I got home on Saturday, the 14th, I felt so relieved. And I said to my kids, “I’m here. I’m going to stay here. It’ll be OK,” and I said, “Do you have any questions?” And my 8-year-old said, “Coronavirus is going to be kind of like an ‘Avengers’ ending where Thanos snaps his fingers and half of all people disappear.” And that was her understanding of this. I’ve been doing a lot of supervision of hand washing, obviously. With my own kids, they’ve been terrific. The fact that their mom is often distant from them means that they understand the concept that just because you can’t see somebody doesn’t mean that they’re not there and they don’t love you. They’ve had to do a lot of FaceTiming with me over my time in Congress. And so we have some of these remote procedures already in place in our own life to stay in touch. And they’re helpful during this crisis.