If you're wondering what happens to Kamala Harris's Senate seat in the event she's elected vice president in November, the governor of California, Gavin Newsom, fills the vacancy. The person he chooses then serves until the earlier of (1) the end of Harris's Senate term or (2) the next statewide general election in California. Harris would have been up for re-election in 2022, which is also the date of California's next general election. It seems likely that Newsom's choice, after serving in the Senate for two years, will be nominated in 2022 and then elected to a full term.
I don't know how things look to Gavin Newsom. From a half continent away, it seems to me there are at least two strong contenders: Adam Schiff and Katie Porter. Since Schiff is known to all for his role in Trump's impeachment trial, I'm just going to say a word about Porter. She's less experienced, having been elected to a House seat for the first time in 2018. Her district is in Orange County—affluent suburbs south of L.A. The Cook Partisan Voter Index for the district is R+3. She's the first Democrat ever to represent the district and won the seat by defeating the two-term Republican incumbent, Mimi Walters, 52 to 48 percent. An Iowa farm girl and honors graduate of Harvard Law School, she might seem like an odd fit, culturally and geographically, for the district. But maybe looking up from a book when the housewives of Orange County raised their voices on the Bravo network made too strong an impression on me. Porter is the author of a standard legal textbook, Modern Consumer Law. Her mother is a co-founder and former host of a public television show devoted to quilting.
You might think knocking off Porter, a one-term Democrat in a Republican-leaning district, would be high up on the Republicans' to-do list. Porter's race, however, is currently rated "likely Democrat"—not "solid" but not "lean," either. She's whip smart and hard working. The combination has proven potent when questioning witnesses, such as Trump administration officials, before congressional committees. In the video above, HUD Secretary Ben Carson makes her acquaintance and, after first thinking that she might be talking about Oreo cookies, tells her that REO refers to "Real Estate Organization," which isn't quite the same as the correct answer. Here she is questioning Kathy Kraninger, director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The answer to the question Kraninger wouldn't (or couldn't) answer is that the APR for the described loan is 520%.
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