Without Elizabeth Warren, I Would’ve Given Up On My Dreams

Bustle’s Without This Woman is a series of essays honoring the women who change and challenge us every day. Below, Rep. Katie Porter (D-California), who’s running for Senate in 2024, reflects on her relationship with Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Porter, who’s 49, is also the debut memoirist of I Swear: Politics Is Messier Than My Minivan, out April 11.

I met Elizabeth when I was a third-year law student at Harvard. I took her bankruptcy class and was interested in bankruptcy. I had grown up in the farm crisis in the 1980s. Small businesses had gone broke. When the grain elevator in my town went broke, everyone lost their grain.

One of the things she did was call on all her students, everybody. She said the same people always put their hands in the air, [which] is a human characteristic. Some people are hand-raisers and some are not, but everybody needs to have a voice. When I became a professor, I called on all my students, and in my town halls [as a politician], people are given index cards. They write their question on the index card, and then [the cards] go in a huge, gold bingo-ball spinner. We draw questions out of the bingo-ball spinner. The idea is to make sure I’m hearing from everybody, because sometimes it’s the people who don’t raise their hands that most need to be heard.

At the end of my third year at Harvard Law School, we had a charity auction. The money goes to help students work in public-service jobs. I had received the money when I was a first-year student, so as a third-year student, I wanted to bid on something. We asked Elizabeth if she would offer a dinner at her house on graduation day, and she agreed. So my friends and I pooled our money and bought this barbecue. Elizabeth had it at her house, our parents were all there, and she told every one of our parents that each of us was the best student she’d ever had. (She advertised this for years afterward, like it was part of what you could [bid on]: She would tell your parents that you were the best student she’d ever had.)

“We’re no-nonsense people. You learn to take the good advice and listen respectfully, but stay courageous enough to leave behind advice that would take away who you are.”

I stayed in touch with her throughout my career, including talking with her about things like wanting to start a family. The advice she gave me, which I think is good advice, is that there’s never a perfect moment, but don’t let that stop you from making the moment. She’s been wonderful with my family. My youngest daughter, Elizabeth, is named for her. She goes by Betsy, which is actually what Elizabeth Warren went by when she was young — little-known fact.

Once, when I was visiting Harvard, Elizabeth and I went out for lunch with a very eminent Harvard Business School professor. At the end of lunch, we decided we were going to split the bill and all took out our credit cards. Elizabeth put her credit card down, I looked down, and I said, “Oh, I have that same credit card.” We both had this L.L. Bean credit card [that gives you] points you can spend at L.L. Bean. The other professor threw down his card, which was like a black-platinum-executive-silver card. It probably had a diamond chip in it. Elizabeth and I were bonding about how we like to get free points for the L.L. Bean merchandise, and he said, kind of blushing, “I use mine for upgrades to first class on flights to Europe.”

Elizabeth and I both grew up having experiences that showed us that even when Americans work hard, our economy has winners and losers. That’s part of capitalism. Part of the job of government is making sure that when people are struggling, capitalism gives them a way to get back on their feet. She’s from Oklahoma. I’m from Iowa. We’re no-nonsense people. You learn to take the good advice and listen respectfully, but stay courageous enough to leave behind advice that would take away who you are. We want to earn people’s trust and confidence by being honest about who we are.

She’s ultimately become a kind of a co-conspirator in the work we’re both doing, fighting to have a better economy for everybody. Without Elizabeth Warren, I would’ve given up on my dreams.

As told to Leila Barghouty. This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.