Electing

SACRAMENTO — Across America, 53 women have served as state governors. But not one in California. What gives? Aren’t we supposed to be enlightened out here in this cutting-edge state?

In fact, 14 women currently are governors in all sorts of states — north, south, flyover and Pacific coast. Big, midsize and small. Red, blue and purple.

We stand out with a huge black mark.

Voters have a chance to erase the ugly spot this year with Katie Porter in position to possibly be elected California’s first female governor.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying Porter should be elected just because she’s a woman.

What I’m saying is that this is an opportunity to elect a perfectly qualified woman. If a male opponent is considered better suited for the job, fine. But first, let’s give her a good hard look and listen to her ideas. Maybe she’s too liberal — or not liberal enough. Perhaps too feisty and brusque than some unfairly find acceptable in a woman.

Independent polling shows that Porter basically isn’t getting any more support from women voters than she is from men.

I queried my best source on such matters: my daughter, Karen Skelton, a longtime political operative who has served stints in the Clinton and Biden White Houses. Why aren’t more women rallying around Porter?

“There was a time when women were excited to support women just because they were women, fueled by the historic prospect of electing ‘the first,’” she said. “But if anything has been proven in the last two presidential elections where women ran, it’s that identity politics does not work….

“It has to be more than her identity as a woman to get her elected.”

Yep. In my view, Democrat Hillary Clinton wasn’t very likable in 2016 and ran a lousy campaign. In 2024, Vice President Kamala Harris also lacked popularity. And she was dealt a losing hand by aging President Biden when he took too long to step aside.

Harris, a former U.S. senator with a long history of electoral success in California, would have been the heavy favorite to become the state’s first female governor if she had run. But she declined, opting for a possible third presidential bid in 2028.

Porter, 52, is a UC Irvine consumer law professor and former Orange County congresswoman who increased her statewide name familiarity by running unsuccessfully for the Senate in 2024.

Running for governor, she has been forthright and specific on what she’d try to achieve in Sacramento. She’d probably shake up the place.

One goal that should appeal to young families is free childcare. How’d she pay for that, I asked.

“Well, how do we afford public schools, roads, everything else, right?” the single mother of three answered, implying it’s about priorities. “The reason we don’t fund childcare, but we do fund other things, is because we expect women and mothers to do childcare for free or for pennies.”

She was scurrying along leading the Democrat pack last fall until tripping over two videos that displayed a hot temper.

In one, she threatened to walk out of a TV interview when a female reporter repeatedly asked how she expected to gain the votes of President Trump’s supporters. An irritated Porter said she didn’t need their votes, and she was right — but also rude.

In the other video — an oldie — then-Rep. Porter was shown yelling at a young female aide to “get out of my f— shot” during a videoconference with a Cabinet secretary.

Porter says she apologized to the staffer that day and they worked together for years afterward. And following a recent televised debate, Porter says, the former aide texted her congratulations and added that if she still lived in California, she’d vote for her.

The TV reporter, Julie Watts of CBS, was a moderator of a campaign debate last week and tossed some prickly questions at Porter and the other candidates.

“I was very calm and answered all the questions,” Porter notes. “I showed people I can do better” than the TV interview she has apologized for many times.

Porter has never completely recovered from the harmful videos. But she’s running close to two other Democrats — billionaire Tom Steyer and former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra — in the June 2 primary.

“If a man had done the same thing, we wouldn’t be talking about it,” asserts Valerie McGinty, founder and president of Fund Her, an organization dedicated to electing women.

Several women agreed.

Assemblymember Cottie Petrie-Norris (D-Irvine), who has endorsed Porter, points to the late beloved, oft-profane legislative leader John Burton of San Francisco as an example of a double standard.

“Not a woman in American politics could get away with titling their autobiography ‘I Yell Because I Care,’” she says. On the book’s jacket cover, Burton is pictured speaking to a crowd with two raised middle fingers.

“People expect women to be strong but not too harsh,” Petrie-Norris says.

OK, but why do women get elected governor in other states, but not in California?

Mindy Romero, director of the Center for Inclusive Democracy at USC, says the vast amounts of money and human resources needed to win in humongous California make it especially difficult for women. They usually haven’t been included in the political pipeline long enough, she says, to build a hefty donor base, acquire elective office experience and gain statewide name recognition.

Three women have dropped out of the current race because they weren’t gaining ground. But it’s hard to argue it was because of any gender hurdles.

Previously, three women won their party nominations for governor but lost in November: Democrats Dianne Feinstein and Kathleen Brown in 1990 and 1994, respectively, and Republican Meg Whitman in 2010. None lost because of any double standard. It just wasn’t their year politically.

But California has elected three female U.S. senators — Democrats Feinstein, Barbara Boxer and Harris.

And nearly half the state Legislative seats are held by women.

It’s conceivable this year that California finally enters the 20th century — let alone the 21st — by electing our first female governor.

What else you should be reading

The must-read: Coded messages, ‘red boxing’ and other allegations in California’s testy race for governor
Money (That’s what I want): Billionaire-tax backers say they have enough signatures to qualify for ballot
The L.A. Times Special: Voter guide to the 2026 California primary election

Until next week,
George Skelton

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His cancer surgery over the weekend reminds us that Chief Justice William Rehnquist, appointed to the Supreme Court by President Nixon, is not going to be on the court forever.

Neither is John Paul Stevens — a Ford appointee and, like Rehnquist, a World War II veteran. Nor is the third most senior justice, Sandra Day O’Connor, who has now served through six presidential terms.

Their successors will control national policy on the most sensitive and profound political questions of our day –abortion, race, religion and gay marriage. And that means that the most important domestic issue confronting a President Bush or a President Kerry will be his appointments to the Supreme Court.

The court’s current lineup hasn’t changed since 1994 — the longest period without a new justice since the Marshall court of the early 1800s. In the last century, by my calculations, justices on average retired when they were 71 years old after about 14 years on the court.

In 2005, Rehnquist will be 81 and will have served on the court for 33 years. Stevens will be 85 and will have served for 30 years. O’Connor will be 75 and will have served for 24 years. Others are not far behind: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a Clinton appointee, will be 72, with 12 years’ service. Justice Antonin Scalia and Justice Anthony Kennedy will be 69, with 19 and 17 years respectively. Only Justice Clarence Thomas will be below the age of 65.

Even one new justice could profoundly affect a court that is closely divided on important social issues. And two new justices could shift national policy dramatically.

Slim 5-4 majorities stand behind the decisions that have struck down prohibitions on partial-birth abortion, approved affirmative action programs in colleges and universities, allowed the use of vouchers at private religious schools and restricted use of the death penalty.

Only a one-vote margin has supported restricting Congress’ regulatory power in favor of the states, which affects anti-discrimination, criminal and environmental laws.

A 5-4 majority last term agreed that the nation was at war after the Sept. 11 attacks and that the president and Congress could authorize the detention of “enemy combatants” in the war on terror.

A 6-3 margin defends the basic right to abortion first recognized in Roe vs. Wade and the expansion of gay rights in Lawrence vs. Texas that has spurred efforts for a constitutional amendment to prohibit same-sex marriage.

With a closely divided Senate a certainty, Supreme Court confirmation hearings in the next four years could make the outrages of the Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas hearings look tame. And the filibuster, used by Democrats to block Bush’s lower-court nominees, may be only the beginning of procedural shenanigans.

Just how bloody a battle might be, however, depends on which justice resigns and which candidate wins. A Bush nominee replacing the reliably conservative Rehnquist wouldn’t change the court’s status quo or draw a massive fight. If John Kerry wins, however, his choice to replace Rehnquist would mean major change and, most likely, a knock-down, drag-out struggle.

A more politicized nomination and confirmation process is the Supreme Court’s own doing. Over the last half-century, it has arrogated power — weakening the role of states and even Congress — when it comes to many political and moral questions. The only way for interest groups and citizens to change policy on abortion, affirmative action or gay rights is to change the justices on the Supreme Court.

Despite bruising confirmation proceedings, however, history shows that it is the president who still makes the decisive choice when it comes to the court. In the last century, the Senate has confirmed 89% of the president’s nominees to the Supreme Court. Twelve of the last 14 nominees have taken their seats on the court.

Both candidates are well aware of the stakes, and both are certainly readying nominees. Kerry has said he would nominate a jurist who would protect abortion rights. According to the New York Times, Bush told donors that he expected to replace one justice shortly after his reelection and that he might be replacing as many as four in a second term. His role models for nominees, he has said, are Scalia and Thomas.

But either candidate could be surprised. Republican President Eisenhower chose Chief Justice Earl Warren and Justice William Brennan, whose late-blooming activist tendencies caused him to consider their appointments the biggest mistakes of his presidency. The first President Bush appointed David H. Souter, who has evolved toward the liberal end of the spectrum.