In a statement Monday, the White House said the president will visit with first responders, state and local officials, and communities impacted by the recent extreme weather; survey recovery efforts; and assess what additional federal aid is needed.

California has been hit by nine atmospheric rivers since Christmas. Across the state, the storms have killed at least 20 people and caused at least $1 billion in damage.

Biden on Saturday declared that a major disaster exists in California and ordered federal aid to supplement state, tribal and local recovery efforts in the areas affected by severe winter storms, flooding, landslides and mudslides beginning on Dec. 27 and continuing.

Funding is now available to residents of Santa Cruz, Sacramento and Merced counties.

In a separate statement, the White House said assistance can include grants for temporary housing and home repairs, low-cost loans to cover uninsured property losses and other programs to help people and businesses recover from the effects of the disaster.

Check back for updates.

A once-in-a-generation political battle is heating up in California as candidates begin to spar over Dianne Feinstein’s coveted Senate seat, promising reverberations that will shake up everything from our representation in the U.S. House to our local Bay Area elections.

It’s exceedingly rare — like snow in San Jose rare — for one of California’s two U.S. Senate seats to hit the ballot without an incumbent running. But that’s exactly what may happen in 2024 when many expect Feinstein, who is almost 90 and reportedly facing cognitive decline, to retire.

U.S. Rep. Katie Porter, an Orange County Democrat, made waves this past week when she became the first to officially declare her candidacy for Feinstein’s seat. And several of the Golden State’s representatives in the U.S. House, including locals Barbara Lee from the East Bay and Ro Khanna from Silicon Valley, and Adam Schiff from Southern California, have shown interest in the seat Feinstein has held since 1992.

Others, including Rep. Eric Swalwell from the East Bay — who was 12 when Feinstein took office — also have been mentioned as contenders. If they run, the scramble could open the door for a new generation of ambitious Democrats to slip into those vacated House seats, providing a chance for termed-out local mayors, county supervisors and city councilmembers to move up the political ladder without facing off against an entrenched opponent.

“There are a lot of people who will be looking at this as an opportunity,” said David McCuan, a political science professor at Sonoma State University.

The election is still nearly two years away. And what’s more, Feinstein — who has been adamant she won’t leave office until she’s good and ready — hasn’t even hinted that she won’t seek reelection in 2024. But the fact that the feeding frenzy already has begun shows it’s going to be a crowded, dramatic and expensive race.

“It could be a cast of thousands,” joked Larry Gerston, professor emeritus of politics at San Jose State University. “These things don’t come up very often. It’s a gem of a position to have, that’s for sure.”

Landing a seat in the U.S. Senate is scoring one of the “ultimate” jobs in politics, Gerston said. It’s an exclusive club with just 100 members, and it can serve as a springboard to the presidency.

Porter got some blowback for the timing of her announcement — in the midst of damaging storms and flooding that have resulted in multiple deaths across the state. But she put pressure on other prospective candidates to make a move, McCuan said. Timing is important, he said, and no one wants to be last.

The next day, Lee told colleagues during a closed-door meeting that she plans to run — though she hasn’t formally announced her intentions, a source close to Lee confirmed to this news organization. Meanwhile, Khanna has said he’s considering a Senate run. There’s even speculation that Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is thought to have his eye ultimately on the presidency, might throw his hat in the ring — though he has publicly promised to serve all four years of his brand-new term as governor.

Feinstein, the longest-serving female senator in U.S. history, is a political legend in California and throughout the country. She has deep Bay Area roots, serving as a San Francisco supervisor and then mayor before joining the Senate. But her advanced age and recent questions over her ability to do her job have opened the floodgates to rivals eager to replace her.

“I think if she chooses to run she’s still hard to beat,” said Thad Kousser, a UC San Diego political science professor. “She’s not unbeatable. She’s no longer the single most popular politician in the state, as she once was.”

All that jostling for Feinstein’s seat will spur some interesting down-ticket races. With Porter no longer in the mix, it’s not unlikely that her battleground Southern California district will go to a Republican — potentially helping the GOP hold onto their control of the House.

Lee’s vacated House seat, on the other hand, would undoubtedly go to a Democrat — maybe someone like former Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf or Oakland Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan, who recently lost her bid for Alameda County supervisor, Gerston said.

Amelia Ashley-Ward, publisher of the Sun-Reporter — a historic San Francisco newspaper serving the Black community — wants Feinstein to step down early and Newsom to appoint Lee to take her place. The Black community felt “robbed” when Newsom did not replace then-Sen. Kamala Harris — the only Black woman in the Senate when she became vice president — with another Black woman, Ashley-Ward said (though she loves Sen. Alex Padilla, who ultimately took that seat). Newsom has since promised to appoint a Black woman if Feinstein steps down.

“We’re underrepresented and we need to have our voices heard there,” Ashley-Ward said. “I think that it’s really, really needed.”

The hot-button race is also a fight for geographic representation, pitting Northern California candidates (Lee, Khanna and Swalwell) against SoCal ones (Porter and Schiff). Until Harris vacated her spot for the vice presidency, Northern Californians had occupied both of the Golden State’s Senate seats since Feinstein and Sen. Barbara Boxer, from Marin County, were elected together three decades ago.

But no matter who wins, they are likely to vote very similarly on key issues, Kousser said.

“It’s going to be a fight for different flavors of progressive Democrats,” he said.

Harmeet Dhillon, a San Francisco lawyer running for chair of the Republican National Committee, thinks while the candidates mentioned so far might garner votes in big, liberal cities, their left-leaning politics are too “extreme” to win fans statewide.

“These are not likable, crossover, appealing-to-moderates candidates in my opinion,” she said.

The race hasn’t drawn any Republican challengers yet, but Gerston is sure it will — though they will face a “steep hill to climb” in liberal California, he said.

With so much time to go until the race, there are sure to be plenty of shake-ups and surprise candidates. In addition to the big names, we also might see someone who is new to politics but is wealthy enough to finance their own campaign.

“There are enough people in this state,” Gerston said, “with lots of zeros behind their name, who if they want to run, could.”

Nearly half of the almost 52,000 people who called 211 — the nationwide social services hotline — in six Bay Area counties last year needed housing help, from a place to shelter for the night to assistance paying their rent so they wouldn’t be evicted. That’s up from about a third the year before.

The surge in demand, which came as the last statewide COVID-19 eviction protections expired and inflation soared, is overwhelming the Bay Area’s resources, meaning many people in need are turned away or left to languish on long waitlists.

“We’ve always received calls about housing needs, but the past quarter especially we’ve been seeing thousands of our neighbors reach out about housing,” said Clare Margason, 211 director for United Way Bay Area. “Our residents are struggling to pay their rent, to meet basic needs.”

United Way recently released its first public, online database tracking the number and types of calls it receives at the 211 centers it operates for San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Marin, Napa and Solano counties. (The call centers in Alameda and Contra Costa counties are run by different organizations.) Margason hopes the data will help make their services stronger by identifying gaps in resources.

After housing at 47%, food was the second-most needed resource last year, comprising nearly 17% of requests, followed by help with health care, at 13%. Requests for help with mental health or substance abuse, at nearly 7%, also ticked up despite the launch last summer of 988 — a nationwide mental health crisis hotline.

Pleas for housing help have soared in Alameda County as well, jumping up 27% last year, according to Eden I&R, which operates the county’s 211 line locally. The call center, which keeps an extensive housing database, sometimes can refer callers directly to affordable housing units or shelter beds, or help them get on waitlists. Because of the bureaucratic nature of the county’s affordable housing system, 211 operators often have to refer callers to other resource centers where they can begin a complicated screening process to determine if they are eligible for help.

“There’s never enough,” said Eden I&R Executive Director Alison DeJung. “It can be pretty common that a caller will call and there’s no shelter bed available.”

Because the need is so great, her team launched a new “housing specialty unit” in October designed to help callers hold onto their housing and avoid ending up on the street. They hired three employees specially trained in tenant rights to help callers who are at risk of eviction or struggling to pay rent. The Bay Area’s other 211 call centers are working on similar experimental programs.

United Way outsourced its 211 call centers to Southern California in 2012 due to financial challenges and now calls from San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Napa, Marin and Sonora counties are answered in Ventura County.

In Santa Clara County, there has been such a desperate need for emergency shelter that during the COVID-19 pandemic, the county launched a separate hotline just to connect people to beds. Dubbed the Here4You hotline — 408-385-2400 — the number is now operated by the Bill Wilson Center, which runs shelters and housing programs in the county. Before the recent storms wreaked havoc on the region, the hotline received about 300 calls per day, said CEO Sparky Harlan. Now, that’s up to between 400 and 450. There are so many people in need, that the call center is constantly turning people away.

“We’re probably able to place a third of the people right now that are calling,” Harlan said.

The need is similarly high in Contra Costa County, where the number of calls specifically related to evictions nearly doubled — increasing from 681 in 2021 to 1,196 last year.

Tom Myers, executive director of the nonprofit Community Services Agency in Mountain View, isn’t surprised by the spike in 211 requests for housing. He’s seen a similar increase at his own agency — both in the number of people who need help paying rent and in those who are trying to claw their way out of homelessness. Unable to keep up with demand, his team is forced to put people on waiting lists. The average wait for rental assistance is between two and four weeks, he said.

“Unfortunately, I think we’ve known for some time that we have a group of people who are living in incredibly housing insecure environments,” Myers said. “And that number increased. It multiplied during COVID. And it’s not going away. Until the Bay Area solves its affordable housing crisis, we are going to continue to have this problem.”

Multiple sources told the Bay Area News Group that Price and her new leadership team in their first full week in office moved to place at least three deputy district attorneys, including senior prosecutors, on leave.

Deputy District Attorneys John Brouhard, Butch Ford and Colleen McMahon are among the attorneys Price placed on paid administrative leave — a status that opens the door for their termination.

Additionally, Chief of Inspectors Craig Chew and Assistant Chief of Inspectors Andrea Moreland were fired, according to multiple sources. Unlike prosecutors, inspectors are considered at-will employees and can be terminated without arbitration. The attorneys placed on leave could not be fired until after a two-pronged process, which ends with a ruling by either an administrative law judge or an arbitrator.

On Friday, the mood inside the DA’s office ranged from demoralization to panic. Multiple employees were asked to inform their colleagues, and in some cases their friends, that they were to be placed on administrative leave and other attorneys sat in their offices wondering if they would be next, according to the sources.

Matt Finnegan, an attorney with the local union representing Alameda County prosecutors, said his office is representing the attorneys and will continue to do so “as more slips come in.”

“The biggest downside is that they aren’t going to be able to handle any cases while they’re on administrative leave,” Finnegan said.

It is unclear exactly why the prosecutors were shown the door. A spokeswoman for the DA’s office declined to comment.

However, Price had criticized some of the prosecutors, including Ford, during her 2022 campaign.

Ford, a longtime prosecutor with more than 30 murder trials under his belt, prosecuted an Oakland man, Shawn Martin, who won an appeal of his murder conviction over Ford giving jurors a misleading instruction. Martin was found not guilty on retrial, and later became a volunteer for Price’s campaign.

Martin’s case became a sticking point because just before his second trial, his attorney filed a failed motion to recuse the entire Alameda County DA’s office for alleged rampant misconduct. Just days before Price’s victory in the Nov. 8 election, Martin was identified as a suspect in a nonfatal shooting outside an Oakland bar and remains at large.

The shakeup also comes just days after Price reduced charges against suspected serial killer David Misch, who was being prosecuted by McMahon. Already incarcerated at a state prison hospital for stabbing a woman to death, Misch is facing a new trial in the slayings of two Fremont women and the abduction and killing of 9-year-old Michaela Garecht in Hayward, all cold cases from the 1980s.

Price dropped special circumstances charges against Misch, stirring controversy while making good on a campaign promise to review cases where individuals face life without the possibility of parole. It is the first of many such cases Price is expected to evaluate.

The official reason for sidelining Brouhard along with McMahon would be more of a mystery, if not for a common denominator among the two veteran prosecutors. While running for DA, Price held a press conference calling out McMahon, Brouhard and other prosecutors for using their government email accounts to campaign for Nancy O’Malley in 2018. O’Malley — who defeated Price and won re-election that year — announced her retirement in May 2021, opening up the seat for the first time in decades.

Price at the time said the prosecutors used county resources “to gain an unfair advantage” against her. Price and an attorney representing her campaign filed a complaint with the Fair Political Practices Commission alleging attorneys violated a state government code prohibiting an independent expenditure committee from coordinating with a candidate — in this case O’Malley.

The Fair Political Practices Commission investigation of the complaint filed by Price remains open, according to the FPPC. Like Ford, McMahon and Brouhard have handled numerous felony trials and are among the office’s most seasoned prosecutors.

Other high-ranking prosecutors who worked under O’Malley have left or are rumored to be eyeing the exit.

Veteran prosecutor Terry Wiley, the O’Malley-backed candidate who ran against Price in the November 2022 election, retired from the office after the election.

One early departure, according to sources, is Assistant District Attorney L.D. Louis, a 20-plus-year prosecutor. Louis is said to have joined the County Counsel’s Office, which oversees legal matters for the civilian side of the county. Louis was most recently the head of the DA’s mental health unit, specializing in policy as well as collaborative courts and alternatives to incarceration.

Top-floor prosecutors and inspectors, like Wiley and Chew, are at-will employees, meaning they could be dismissed without a reason. Virtually all prosecutors, except for assistant district attorneys, are represented by the Alameda County Prosecutors Association and cannot be terminated without cause. Prosecutors began organizing in 2018 and were formalized as a union two years later.

Any prosecutor placed on leave is entitled to a so-called Skelly hearing, which provides employees an opportunity to hear and defend themselves against the employer’s allegations.

In announcing her new leadership team last Friday, Price appointed retired Oakland police Capt. Eric Lewis as chief of inspectors and former Marin County Assistant District Attorney Otis Bruce Jr. and Royl L. Roberts, a Peralta Community College administrator who recently became the district’s general counsel after passing the state bar in July, as her two chief assistant district attorneys.

— “Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1798

It has taken an unprecedented series of multiyear droughts, conversion of thousands of California lawns to water-sparing cacti and other plants and stricter-than-ever water rationing in many parts of the state, but at last it’s beginning to look like Coleridge’s mariner may have been premature.

There’s plenty of Pacific Ocean water being drunk in California today, with every indication suggesting there will be much more to come. California will likely never be like Israel, drawing 90% of its drinking water from desalinated sea water, but it’s probable now that eventually such purified brine will make up something more than 10% of the state’s supply.

This looks like a simple necessity. As the state insists on more and more dense residential construction and as snowpacks in the Sierra Nevada become thinner over the decades, this state will have to brace for spending big money to provide water for its population of about 40 million.

Yes, that population was down a little over the last two years, as some folks migrated to other states and fewer of the foreign-born came here during the worst COVID-19 pandemic years. But these look like minor and probably temporary phenomena compared with the full scope of urban California. No one has seen any notable declines in either traffic jams or crowds in pedestrian-only areas in spite of the state’s recent loss of one seat in Congress.

Plus the rest of California has seen that San Diego County, with the Poseidon Water desalination facility at Carlsbad producing all-out during the drought, was better off water-wise than many parts of the state. That came at a price, of course. The Poseidon plant, making about 48,000 acre-feet of purified water yearly (more than 1.5 billion gallons), accounted for almost 10% of San Diego County’s water at a price of about $2,750 per acre-foot.

At one time, the price tag seemed to make the cost of desalination prohibitive elsewhere in the state. At the time the Carlsbad plant was finished, supplies from the California State Water Project were being sold to some agencies for about $700 per acre-foot. Desalinated water thus cost about four times as much as aqueduct supplies.

However, the state’s aqueducts and the reservoirs they once filled have run at depleted levels for the last two years, and the cost differences of various types of water are beginning to narrow. Drought has caused the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, the state’s largest water wholesaler, to sell treated supplies for about $1,200 per acre-foot over the last year, still not close to the cost of desalinated water, but much closer than it was only about six years ago.

As technology improves, allowing desalination to kill fewer marine animals and organisms while producing less brine, more plants will be approved. This will be especially true if droughts persist and provide political pressure to green-light desalination projects. New technology also includes experiments with widely-spaced desalination buoys to decentralize the process so no ocean areas are overloaded with either thick brine or dead flora and fauna.

As usual, necessity has become the mother of invention: To survive, California must have more desalination plants if drought and population levels persist. For sure, the political imperative is there: A July survey by the Public Policy Institute of California found three-quarters of likely voters believe droughts are a big problem. Expensive as it may be, that cannot help but thrust desalination to the fore as a big part of the solution.

Thomas Elias can be reached at tdelias@aol.com. To read more of his columns, visit californiafocus.net online.

Newsom was immensely lucky that fellow Democrats controlled the federal government the last two years. President Biden and Congress showered California with tens of billions in economic aid, enough for the governor to avoid a budget crisis this winter.

It’s doubtful the federal largess would have showed up if Biden had lost to then-President Trump in 2020 and if Democrats hadn’t controlled the Senate and House by razor-thin margins.

“If it was up to, respectfully, the Republican Party, none of this would have happened. Not one dollar would have come our way,” Newsom told reporters Tuesday, referring to federal funding boosts as he unveiled a $297-billion state budget plan for the next fiscal year.

In all, Newsom said, California has received $48 billion from two major federal bills: the $700-billion Inflation Reduction Act and the $1.2-trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Much of the money was distributed to local governments and private entities.

“We could receive an additional $48 billion,” he said.

That’s luck. But Newsom has been lucky for several reasons since taking office four years ago.

Both legislative houses have been controlled by supermajorities of Democrats. He can govern without Republican interference. He doesn’t need them for anything.

Newsom has had no significant political rival in either party. Republicans are too weak. Democrats don’t dare.

Thanks to voters in 2010, the legislative vote requirement for passing a budget is only a simple majority. Before that, a two-thirds vote was needed, resulting in summer-long deadlocks that tarnished the images of all Sacramento politicians. These days, it’s easy for a governor to get his spending plan passed.

Newsom also was lucky to govern in good economic times. Until very recently, the state treasury continually overflowed with tax revenue. Unlike predecessors Jerry Brown and Arnold Schwarzenegger, Newsom hasn’t had to gut popular state programs to balance the books, angering political allies.

Last year, a ridiculous $100-billion surplus was projected for the current budget. But because of the economic downturn, general fund tax revenues are running nearly $30 billion short, resulting in a projected deficit of $22.5 billion.

Except for brief fiscal jitters during the 2020 pandemic that turned out to be a false scare, this is the first time Newsom has confronted a real deficit.

The governor was justified in patting himself on the back and praising the Legislature for socking away nearly $36 billion in various piggy banks — so-called rainy-day funds — to be tapped during bad times. But he left them alone. Things could get worse, he explained, and they’d be needed then.

The governor called for delaying lots of planned programs for a year, but not outright eliminating them. He proposed paying for some public works projects with bond financing rather than cash. He reduced some planned expenditures but offered a “trigger” mechanism that would restore the funding if tax revenues picked up.

No slash and burn. Just a gentle touch as you’d expect from a liberal governor. But even with that, he’ll be under pressure from liberal lawmakers and interest groups to restore the cuts when he revises the budget proposal in May.

Newsom was asked by a reporter whether he thought the House leadership change would affect the state budget. His immediate answer seemed to contradict what he’d said a few minutes earlier about how Republicans wouldn’t have produced federal funding as Democrats did.

“Speed bumps,” Newsom replied. “I don’t see their agenda getting any traction whatsoever.”

He said House GOP legislation would be blocked by Senate Democrats and Biden.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s “priorities … are not the agenda of the American people,” Newsom said. “It’s just noise.”

But then he seemed to think again and added, “They can be a roadblock. … Momentum will be disrupted.

“So, we have to step up our game. … We have the moral authority to push back, and I can assure you we will do that.”

And his relationship with fellow California native McCarthy? “To be determined.”

Regardless of how far their legislation advances in Congress, however, House Republicans are positioned to block additional funding for California. They’ve never been enthusiastic about climate programs, for example.

And one thing seems certain: There won’t be any additional federal funding for California’s practically broke bullet train while McCarthy is speaker. He’s one of the pokey project’s most adamant opponents.

Rare bad luck for Newsom.

George Skelton is a Los Angeles Times columnist.

California’s flooding rains and heavy snows that killed at least 17 people have likely caused more than $30 billion in damages and economic losses, according to AccuWeather.

The Pacific storms, known as atmospheric rivers, are estimated to have caused $31 billion to $34 billion of economic impacts through major flooding, widespread power outages, landslides, fallen trees and road closures, the commercial weather forecaster said Wednesday.

“A substantial portion of the damage to homes and businesses occurred as a result of mudslides and landslides as well as water damage caused by the serious flooding,” Accuweather said.

The losses are more than triple those from December blizzards in Buffalo, New York, though less than the $180 billion to $210 billion caused by Hurricane Ian when it struck Florida last year.

“Additional damage and negative impact to the economy is expected to accrue as the parade of storms continues to affect parts of California through Jan. 18,” the company said.

Accuweather’s calculations are based on direct and indirect impacts of the storm including damage to property, job and wage losses, crops, evacuation costs as well as airline delays, lost business and supply-chain interruptions. The tally includes both insured and uninsured losses.

READ MORE: How do you harness an epic amount of rain in a water-scarce state? Let it flood, scientists say

Like vultures circling, would-be successors to Sen. Dianne Feinstein have spent years eyeing her seat, convinced she will bow to time and good sense and opt against seeking a sixth full term in November 2024. An announcement on the future of the 89-year-old Democrat is expected by the spring.

Meantime, no small number of prospects have been busy lining up staff, working the phones, stroking donors, collecting IOUs, trading political gossip and generally doing everything short of driving an elbow into the ribs of the aged incumbent to hasten a public statement of her intent.

Why the quaint, Victorian notion that those Senate hopefuls should be neither seen nor heard in deference to Feinstein and her plans? The campaign to replace her is in full swing, and has been for a good while. Why not let voters in on the action?

Whatever you think of Porter’s candidacy or credentials — and there will be plenty of time to examine both — credit the Orange County congresswoman with ending the charade.

“I have tremendous respect for Sen. Feinstein and respect her wanting to take her own time” to decide about the future, Porter said in a phone interview after formally declaring her Senate bid Tuesday.

The Democrat made a point of praising the path the former San Francisco mayor blazed for women in politics. But regardless, Porter stated, “If the senator decides to run for another term…. I will still be in this race.”

Porter had good reason to make her first-from-the-gate announcement.

She survived a brutal campaign to win reelection in November, spending much of the $25 million she raised and would doubtless have preferred to devote to running for Senate. One of Porter’s presumed rivals, Democratic Rep. Adam B. Schiff of Burbank, is sitting on a $20-million heap of cash, incentivizing her entry into the contest sooner rather than later.

There is also a tactical advantage to an early start, as Democratic strategist Rose Kapolczynski told the L.A. Times’ Seema Mehta and Nolan D. McCaskill. Kapolczynski ran Barbara Boxer’s successful 1992 Senate campaign, which Boxer began as a long shot even before fellow Democrat Alan Cranston formally announced he would step aside.

“That gave her a head start on organizing and talking to people and being a part of every story about who might run for Senate,” Kapolczynski said.

Porter’s announcement amid the storms battering California wasn’t the wisest political move.

Feinstein responded with a statement reiterating her intention to reveal her plans in good time and stating — one could almost see the arched eyebrow — that she was focused instead on the merciless rainfall and flooding.

Schiff tweeted out a picture of himself, the Capitol dome offering a perfectly framed backdrop, stating he “been calling local, state, and federal” emergency management officials “about the response to the devastating storms impacting our state and how Congress can help.”

Another of Porter’s prospective opponents, Bay Area Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna, said he, too, was busy responding to the “historic weather conditions” rather than focusing on the Senate contest. “In the next few months,” Khanna said on Twitter, “I will make a decision.”

All well and good.

If voters don’t care for the timing of Porter’s announcement, perhaps because they consider it disrespectful to Feinstein, or insensitive to those facing nature’s wrath, they can vote for someone else when the June 2024 primary rolls around.

There will most likely be no shortage of candidates from which to choose.

And now that Porter has ended the shadow campaign, there is no more reason for California’s parade of would-be senators to continue playing coy.

Mark Z. Barabak is a Los Angeles Times columnist.

Rep. Barbara Lee of California told her colleagues in the Congressional Black Caucus during a closed-door meeting Wednesday that she plans to run for the Senate, multiple sources told CNN.

This comes a day after Rep. Katie Porter of California announced a 2024 Senate bid, launching her campaign for Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s seat in what could be a crowded Democratic primary.

One source close to Lee told CNN she has no intention of announcing her run right now amid the storms in California, as well as out of respect for Feinstein, but she plans to run. Politico first reported Lee’s comments to the CBC at a closed-door meeting.

The 89-year-old Feinstein, a member of the Senate since 1992, has not yet made public her own plans for 2024. However, many Democrats believe she is likely to retire rather than seek a sixth full term.

Other potential contenders include Rep. Adam Schiff, Lt. Gov Eleni Kounalakis, California Attorney General Rob Bonta and US Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra, a former longtime member of Congress.

Feinstein has filed 2024 reelection paperwork with the FEC but has faced criticism recently about her fitness for the job. She rejected those suggestions, telling CNN last year that she feels “absolutely” able to serve fully in her position, adding: “I think that’s pretty obvious.”

Not “B1 Bob” Dornan yanking a congressional colleague’s necktie and calling him a draft-dodging wimp. Not Loretta Sanchez’s crazy Christmas cards, or how she dabbed during a debate with the woman who is now vice president of the United States.

While Orange County has given the nation a colorful cast of political characters, Katie Porter’s recent bit of political theater stands out. While her Republican counterparts in the U.S. House of Representatives tried to devour one another like cane toad tadpoles (who feast on their kin) last week, Porter sat in the chamber with beatific calm on her face, perusing “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a (family publication, use your imagination).”

The image went viral. And with that wind at her back, Porter declared her intention to run for the U.S. Senate seat now occupied by longtime Sen. Dianne Feinstein on Tuesday, Jan. 10.

A progressive Democrat already known for her professorial “White Board of Justice” — which has its own Twitter fandom — Porter is putting the world on notice that this isn’t your grandma’s Orange County.

“Most of us in Southern California have understood for a long time how dramatically Orange County has changed, politically, over the years, but this might be the first opportunity for the rest of the country to really understand that,” said Dan Schnur, a veteran of political campaigns who teaches at USC and UC Berkeley.

“Katie Porter is part of a long tradition of Orange County politicians with larger-than-life personalities. And as an Angeleno, my guess is that, because Orange County is so often perceived to be in L.A.’s shadow, a political leader needs to try that much harder to get noticed in a very large and competitive media market,” he continued.

“There’s a performative aspect to politics, and she figured it out very quickly and uses it to her great benefit.”

Unlike some other pols, though, Porter brings true policy expertise to the table, said Louis DeSipio, political science professor at UC Irvine.

“I would put her — not ideologically in any way — but in the Nixon camp,” he said. “For all his faults, Nixon was serious about issues and developed a national reputation for his expertise, and I would think of Porter in a similar way. She has used her experience studying bankruptcy as a scholar and working for the (California) Attorney General (as the state’s independent monitor of banks in a nationwide $25 billion mortgage settlement) to carve out a niche in the house. That’s hard these days, when the nature of things is a lot of partisan squabbling.”

She may lose a bit of ground for challenging Feinstein, the scholars said, but being the first to declare and grab the spotlight is likely to more than make up for that.

Who are O.C.’s other colorful pols who hit the national stage?

Nixon, Yorba Linda and San Clemente: Established reputation as a leading anti-Communist in the 1940s. Won the presidency in 1968, opened the door to China, pulled out of Vietnam, formed the Environmental Protection Agency. Had an unfortunate habit of taping conversations, cussed a lot, tolerated “dirty tricks” in the quest for re-election, resigned office to avoid impeachment (how old fashioned). Indelible image: Nixon in a dark suit and shiny dress shoes, strolling the beach in San Clemente.

“B1 Bob” Dornan, Garden Grove: Conservative firebrand who said, “Every lesbian spear chucker in this country is hoping I get defeated” in 1992; publicly outed fellow Republican Rep. Steve Gunderson as gay on the House floor in 1994 (saying Gunderson had a “revolving door on his closet”); accused President Bill Clinton of giving “aid and comfort to the enemy” during the Vietnam War. “Unswerving advocate” for the development of the B-1 bomber. Accused Loretta Sanchez, who won his seat by a baby’s breath in 1996, of being a “pretend Hispanic” who masterminded the “worst voter fraud in this century.”

Dana Rohrabacher, Huntington Beach: Surfer, guitar player, folk singer, songwriter. Speechwriter and special assistant to President Ronald Reagan from 1981 to 1988. Went on to the House of Representatives. Favored the legalization of cannabis and prohibition of illegal immigrants from acquiring government services. Opposed the National Endowment of the Arts and same-sex marriage. Said global warming was part of a liberal game plan to create global government, joked that earlier warming cycles may have been caused by dinosaur flatulence.

Christopher Cox, Newport Beach, Laguna Niguel: Senior associate counsel to the president during Ronald Reagan’s second term, Congressman, 28th chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Befriended two anti-Communists in Hungary and Lithuania who later became presidents of their countries. Not “colorful,” perhaps, but a major conservative player that O.C. gave the world.

Whoever replaces Feinstein will have a lot to live up to. Her successor will almost certainly be more progressive and more partisan, a reflection of modern times and California’s Democratic electorate, said UCI political science professor Matthew Beckmann.

It takes a ton of time, a ton of people, and a ton of money to campaign in a state as big and diverse as California, he said, making widespread name recognition and a strong donor base vital.

Porter has all that. Porter and her whiteboard may add a very interesting twist to this cast of characters.