Katie Porter voted for California’s ‘flawed’ tough-on-crime measure that divided top Dems

Rep. Katie Porter voted for Proposition 36, a controversial California ballot measure to increase penalties for some retail theft and drug possession, even though she had reservations about the measure that divided top Democrats.

Her remarks about the issue on CNN Friday could be an effort to appeal to California voters who overwhelmingly approved the ballot measure — as she weighs a possible run for governor in 2026.

Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is serving his last term in office, opposed the measure and Vice President Kamala Harris refused to say whether she voted for it.

“I support the increased penalties for retail crimes, that's a problem here. We need to give more tools to our police officers, to our businesses to deal with that,” Porter told CNN’s Brianna Keilar. “At the same time, the drug substance use part of this, we know that incarcerating people for substance use is incredibly expensive to taxpayers and doesn't actually heal people.”

Porter didn’t directly address Harris’ dodge on Prop 36, saying, “I can’t speak for her.” She added that it’s important to tell voters “the truth” and “show respect toward them.”

Porter also expressed confidence that state Sen. Dave Min will win her House seat, which she gave up for a failed Senate bid. The race is extremely close and has not yet been called given the state’s lengthy vote-counting process.

“People don't understand how California election counting works, and so we have this same kind of panic every year,” she said on CNN. “But I am here to tell you as someone who has been through this three times, I never got to celebrate on Election Day, and I always got to go to Congress. It's going to be the exact same thing for Dave Min.”

Porter projected optimism that Democrats still “have a shot at controlling” the House, even though Republicans are likely to retain control of the chamber with about two dozen uncalled races remaining.

Still, she said the close contest for control of the House “is really a wake-up call” for all members of Congress to “connect directly with the biggest challenges families are having.”

“We need a strong economic message, and the party that figures out how to do that is going to be the party that is going to win back control in 2026,” she said. “I feel very good the Democrats can do that.”

Porter blamed President-elect Donald Trump for sucking “up a lot of the oxygen” in both the presidential race and even in her failed Senate bid because Democrats framed him as a threat to democracy without also showing voters how his economic policy would affect their daily lives.

“I think this abstract talk about democracy, obviously it is the foundation of our entire government so one can never minimize it, but how you connect that to what's going on in people's lives, I think that's where our local candidates, our state candidates, our congressional House candidates really had a little bit better success at penetrating and getting through to voters,” she said.