Selen Ozturk
Ethnic Media Services
As the race to fill the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s seat in the U.S. Senate heats up, candidates Barbara Lee, Adam Schiff and Katie Porter joined a forum presented by EMS and California Black Media on Thursday, February 8 to discuss their platforms.
Barbara Lee
Representative Barbara Lee (D-12), who has represented Oakland and most of northern Alameda County since 1998, said many of the challenges Californians face are part of her lived experience.
“For a long time, I was on public assistance, food stamps and Medi-Cal, raising two small boys as a single mother, formerly a survivor of domestic violence … I formed a community mental health center and was a business owner with thousands of employees over 11 years,” she said, adding that she was running for Senate because “I know what it takes to help lift people out of poverty into the middle class, to grow the middle class, to create businesses, to address a mental health crisis.”
Of her experience as a Congressional legislator, Lee said “I’m a fighter, and I’ll stand my ground.” When George W. Bush was President, for instance, she alone voted against the blank check authorization which set the stage for “forever wars.”
Additionally, she led the effort to establish a framework for single-payer health care in California” through Affordable Care Act negotiations, and for AIDS epidemic responses through The Global Fund, which saved 25 million lives.
These efforts extend to her current platform.
Lee said she supported Medicare for all, including for immigrants; would vote for any legislation that ensures a free and open U.S. press; was championing the OLIGARCH Act to tax extreme wealth; and backed the Biden administration’s support for Ukraine during the war.
Furthermore, Lee stressed — as the only person of color in the running — the need to protect disproportionately vulnerable communities of color through climate justice. She also emphasized the need for both border state and black and brown representation among legislators pushing immigration bills like last week’s GOP-blocked border deal, which had representatives of neither.
Adam Schiff
U.S. Representative Adam Schiff (CA D-30), who has represented various parts of Los Angeles County since 2001, agreed with Lee’s criticism of the border deal, adding that foreign aid should never “have ever been combined with a border provision, because it meant the President could be extorted over aid funding by unrelated domestic policy … I would support a comprehensive approach to immigration that includes a pathway to citizenship, and relief for DACA recipients and Temporary Protected Status holders.”
“I’m running for Congress because I want to fight to make the economy work for everyone and to protect our democracy and our planet,” he said, mentioning his support for a universal basic income pilot project for Americans on Medicaid.
His other efforts on this front have included forming a bipartisan and bicameral Congressional caucus on press freedom; federally prosecuting oil companies smuggling waste; promoting Medicare for all and carrying legislation to make racially equitable health care a civil right; fighting online hate against communities of color; advancing a bill repealing the NRA’s immunity from liability; and fighting to more than double the Child Tax Credit, lifting 40% of families with impoverished kids out of poverty.
Schiff diversified the House Intelligence Committee as its chairman, and required diversification progress reports from other agencies like the CIA and NSA.
“Diversity is not only a moral and ethical obligation, but it’s good for keeping the country safe. You can’t have comprehensive, diverse intelligence around the world, if your people don’t look like the rest of the world,” he explained. “If I have a chance to weigh in on appointments, I’m going to elevate people of color to positions of responsibility and make sure that our workforce is reflective of America.”
As “one of the gravest threats we face is this now decades-long effort to disenfranchise people, particularly people of color, my first priority in the US Senate is going to be to do away with the filibuster and pass voting rights,” Schiff added.
Katie Porter
Katie Porter (CA D-47), who has represented various parts of Orange County since 2019, said the biggest challenge faced by California specifically is the cost of housing: “I’m ready to make sure that the federal government is investing in affordable homeownership and undoing the harms of racist redlining policies. My Housing for All plan would focus Washington on the number-one expense for California families, so every Californian can afford safe, climate-resilient housing.”
“One of the most important functions of Congress is oversight,” she continued, explaining why she was running. “It’s not just about giving speeches, it’s about getting powerful people to admit the truth.”
On this front, Porter got Trump’s Director of the CDC to make COVID testing free for all Americans, regardless of insurance, or immigration status; got Tim Sloan to resign as the CEO of Wells Fargo by confronting his “ongoing willingness to cheat Americans”; and got Bank of America to raise its minimum wage to $20 an hour.
This oversight extends to climate change, which costs taxpayers about $145 billion in climate-related disasters.
Porter said she has held polluters accountable through her work in the House Natural Resources Committee and by successfully pushing laws raising rates on those who drill and lease public land, adding that we should “not just address climate change, but also the health inequities that we have as a result of the fossil fuel industry … I’m a big supporter of Medicare for All, for undocumented immigrants as well.”
About recent border negotiations, she said “the bill did not tackle our actual needs for a lawful, orderly and humane immigration system … Immigrants are an incredible source of strength to this country. We cannot have the economy that we need if we do not have an immigration system that recognizes their value” through asylum protections and citizenship pathways, particularly for DACA and TPS recipients.
“I’ve never been for sale,” Porter continued. “I’m the only elected official in this race who has never taken corporate PAC or federal lobbyist money, because it corrupts decisions.” She said she aimed to follow her Shake up the Senate plan including filibuster abolishment, expanded voting rights and a ban on Congressional stock trading to tackle “the corruption in Washington to give younger voters what they have long deserved, confidence in our government.”
“There is no doubt that our next senator needs to be a champion for communities of color,” she added. “Right now in the Senate, ultra-wealthy donors control the conversation. Elected leaders talk too much about how to help corporate America get even richer, and not nearly enough about how to help all of us make ends meet.”
