I Swear

Katie Porter had never run for office before 2018, when she won a House seat as a Democrat in Orange County, California, a historically conservative part of the state. She was a single mother with progressive politics, and plenty of people assumed she would not last. She proved them wrong, and she became widely known for the whiteboard she brought into congressional hearings to press CEOs and government officials for straight answers. Clips of those exchanges spread online and made her a regular on cable news and late-night television.

I Swear: Politics Is Messier Than My Minivan is her account of life inside Congress, told with humor and a lack of polish. Porter writes from the perspective of a parent who spends her days between the Capitol and the driver's seat of a minivan. She sets what politicians say at press conferences against what ordinary people actually live with, and she explains how lawmakers really spend their time. She also argues that Congress's customs were built for members who have someone at home handling the groceries and the kids, and that this does not work for a single parent.

The book also goes back to the start. Porter describes growing up as a farm girl in Iowa, how her circumstances steered her toward the Ivy League, and how she came to think of herself as a Californian while teaching law and raising three children in Orange County. She explains why she left academia for politics and how she learned to unsettle executives and cabinet officials who bluff their way through testimony.

Along the way she makes her case for consumer protection, corporate accountability and anti-corruption reform. She takes readers behind the scenes of political messaging and campaign fundraising, and she uses her whiteboard to show where campaign donations end up, how to push back against companies that cheat you, and how she approaches oversight. The stories range from lending Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez a pair of sneakers during the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol to her kids' mildly illegal campaign antics. The result is a book by a tired but determined parent with no patience for nonsense at home or in the House.