Number-cruncher: the devastating power of Katie Porter's whiteboard

If I were a powerful man caught in a political bind, my dreams would be filled with images of Representative Katie Porter, chasing me around Capitol Hill with a whiteboard.

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The freshman congresswoman’s questioning device has become so notorious, the whiteboard has earned itself a nickname: “the mighty whiteboard of truth”.

Porter’s prop first became ubiquitous when she used it to win free coronavirus testing for all Americans, regardless of whether they have health insurance. More recently, Porter gained big praise after whipping out the whiteboard again, to give a pharmaceutical executive a dressing down for suspected price gouging. Here’s why the device is so effective.

She does the math

In a time when the country’s highest elected official acts as if it’s OK to just point-blank lie about numbers, it’s nice to see them written down where they can speak for themselves.

Just take these two very different prices for the same drug in different years – $215 in 2005 and and $764 in 2020. That sort of price change speaks volumes, but her line helps: “The drug didn’t get any better. The cancer patients didn’t get any better. You just got better at making money.”

They don’t know the math

One thing Porter’s whiteboard consistently reveals is how little high-up officials know about the basic numbers that concern people’s lives.

Just take the head of the CDC, Robert Redfield, who didn’t know how much it cost someone without insurance to get tested for the coronavirus, just as the pandemic was resulting in shutdowns across the country. Once they get the numbers wrong, it’s all downhill from there.

You can’t stop looking at the math

Mark Alles’ $13m bonus during the time that his company tripled the price of cancer drugs is a good example. As is the very precise calculation that Porter follows up with – of exactly how much the CEO personally benefited from the price hike (to the tune of $500,000).

But it’s not just the math

Even via Zoom you can see Porter’s subjects shaking in their seats as she questions them.

In part this is because Porter’s questioning gets to the point quickly.“Do you want to know who has the virus and who doesn’t? And not just rich people?” she asks the CDC’s Redfield about the virus, before she secures the big win.

But it’s the no-nonsense approach that makes it so satisfying to watch. Porter refuses to waste time on obfuscations (I too one day hope to interject “reclaiming my time” before being forced to listen to oncoming garble) and refuses to take mealy-mouthed answers (“Nope, not good enough,” she repeatedly responds to Redfield when he won’t make a commitment to coronavirus testing).