NYT : CALIFORNIA TODAY - A Call With Katie Porter: 'This Is Not a Partisan Crisis'
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The representative from Orange County talks about how the pandemic hit California early. Also: A remembrance of a “cowboy.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/08/us/coronavirus-california-rep-katie-porter.html
Representative Katie Porter at home with her son Paul and daughter Betsy in Irvine in March 2019.Credit...Erin Schaff/The New York Times
Good morning.
On Tuesday evening, Gov. Gavin Newsom told MSNBC that the state would be able to buy 200 million desperately needed masks per month, under deals with a variety of sources. “Enough of the small ball,” he said of efforts to bulk up the state’s supply of personal protective equipment amid a global shortage. Mayor Eric Garcetti of Los Angeles also announced an order that customers at grocery stores and other essential businesses wear face coverings. The directive, which takes effect on Friday, comes as workers at those businesses express mounting concerns over a lack of protection.
A conversation with Representative Katie Porter
Last month, Representative Katie Porter, the freshman Democrat elected as part of Orange County’s “blue wave” in 2018, extracted a promise from the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to make coronavirus testing free for all Americans.
Video of the exchange drew headlines and praise from progressives — and, as The California Sunday Magazine reported in a profile of her, it wasn’t the first time that’s happened. Still, when I talked to her by phone recently, she was, like millions of other Californians, figuring out how to work from home while also caring for her children. She is a single parent to three.
“What I’ve learned is I don’t have any highlighters, I don’t have any Post-it notes, I don’t have any legal pads,” Ms. Porter told me. “I have a lot of markers.” At one point during our call, she paused to talk to her daughter, who she said had donned a homemade unicorn mask. I asked her about the federal government’s response to the pandemic and the upcoming general election to keep her seat.
Here’s our conversation, edited and condensed:
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