Katie Porter returns to politics with Gavin Newsom appointment

Just when you thought she was out, they pull Katie Porter back in.

Gov. Gavin Newsom has appointed the progressive ex-congresswoman from Orange County to the California Community Colleges Board of Governors — two months after Porter declared she was “done, for now, with politics and campaigning.”

The position, which still requires state Senate confirmation, would pay $100 for each day Porter conducts official business.

Porter finished fifth in California’s crowded top-two gubernatorial primary in June, receiving 403,908 votes, or 4.4% of the total, according to state election returns. The defeat followed her distant third-place finish in the 2024 primary for the US Senate seat ultimately won by Adam Schiff.

Democrat Xavier Becerra and Republican Steve Hilton emerged to the November runoff.

After her second straight statewide election loss, Porter said she was ready to pack up her signature whiteboard and try something new.

“Hi, it’s Katie Porter with a nonpolitical post,” she said in July. “I’m done for now with politics and campaigning.”

Porter renamed her Instagram account “Katie Porter Turns the Page” and began posting book reviews.

Her latest selection, “The Mad Wife” by Meagan Church, received mixed reviews from the former congresswoman, whose run for governor was dogged by bullying allegations.

Porter’s ex-husband alleged in 2013 divorce filings that she once dumped a bowl of steaming mashed potatoes on his head during an argument, burning his scalp. Porter disputed his broader account of their troubled marriage and made allegations of her own in court filings.

During the governor’s race, leaked footage from a taped interview showed Porter berating a staffer who entered the camera frame, telling the aide to “get out of my f—ing shot.” 

Porter later apologized for yelling at the employee and acknowledged that she “could have been better” in that and other tense encounters.

The Harvard-trained consumer law professor nevertheless built a national profile during three terms in Congress, becoming known for wielding a whiteboard while grilling corporate executives and Donald Trump administration officials. 

She left the House in 2025 after her unsuccessful Senate campaign and mounted another statewide bid this year.

Porter campaigned as an aggressive opponent of President Trump, delivering a profanity-laced attack against him at the California Democratic Party convention in February.

Now, after two consecutive statewide defeats and a brief pivot to literary influencer, Porter may have secured a quieter role helping oversee California’s sprawling community college system.

The job will presumably have a fair amount of required reading.

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