Rep. Katie Porter, D-Calif., speaks during a televised debate for candidates in the U.S. Senate race, Jan. 22, 2024, in Los Angeles. After it became clear she would not advance past the primary, Porter said billionaires spent money “to rig this election.” Thanking supporters, she said: “Because of you, we had the establishment running scared — withstanding 3 to 1 in TV spending and an onslaught of billionaires spending money to rig this election.”posted to social media.
Hasen, who is a former Porter colleague at UC Irvine, said he understood the context of her message and shared her criticism of undisclosed outsized money being spent on campaigns. However, better language could have been used, he said, to convey that. While Porter’s choice of words is “concerning,” said Ann Ravel, the former chair of the Federal Elections Commission, she isn’t wrong about the influence of outside spending.
“There are better ways to criticize the outsized role of money in politics than to use language that suggests the election process itself is not conducted in a fair manner,” wrote Hasen in the Election Law Blog.