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HOW AOC CAN MAKE OVERSIGHT GREAT AGAIN  
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Kiren Gopal
May 2, 2025
The American Prospect
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_ A former oversight staffer on how to generate attention from
Capitol Hill for working-class issues _

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) looks on during a House
Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on sanctuary cities,
March 5, 2025, on Capitol Hill, Francis Chung/POLITICO via AP Images

 

In April 1994, former Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) convened a landmark
series of “Big Tobacco” hearings
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William Campbell of Philip Morris testified under oath that
“nicotine is not addictive.” The hearings drew considerable public
attention and helped catalyze legal action, leading to a historic
settlement
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where tobacco companies agreed to pay over $200 billion. Images of Big
Tobacco CEOs holding their hands up to be sworn in became an iconic
symbol of the U.S. government holding corporations accountable.

That hearing was held in a subcommittee of the House Energy and
Commerce Committee, but Waxman would go on to chair the House
Oversight Committee, serving as the top watchdog of the Bush
administration. In the time since, Democrats have failed to use the
political theater and drama
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of congressional oversight to produce enough “nicotine is not
addictive” moments that clarify for the American people who stands
against corporate greed and deception.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez could fix that.

If the stage feels too small, it’s only because Democrats haven’t
used it to put on a show.

The New York Democrat is reportedly weighing another bid
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to become the top Democrat, or ranking member, on the House Oversight
Committee. In December, AOC lost the high-profile job
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to then-74-year-old Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA), after Nancy Pelosi
campaigned against her
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generational battle, with some questioning Connolly’s capacity to
handle the position after recovering from a cancer diagnosis, amid
fresh memories of Joe Biden’s diminishment.

This week, Connolly announced that he’ll soon step down
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because his cancer has returned. He’s looking to anoint the
70-year-old Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA)
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as his successor, potentially setting up another generational fight.
AOC, who has since left the Oversight Committee, would need a waiver
to seek the post. Some have also questioned whether the Oversight
stage is now too small
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for AOC, given the large crowds turning out to her rallies with Bernie
Sanders
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across the country.

If the stage feels too small, it’s only because Democrats haven’t
used it to put on a show.

As Democrats continue to reckon with why they lost so many
working-class voters to Donald Trump
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congressional oversight presents an opportunity to not only hold the
Trump administration accountable, but also to shine a spotlight on
corporate abuses and speak to working-class economic concerns. With
AOC’s commitment to working-class politics, ability to connect with
disaffected voters, and media savvy, she could revitalize the
oversight function in new and interesting ways, help Democrats reach
new voters, and win back those who’ve lost faith in them
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THE HOUSE OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE has a broad jurisdiction that allows it
to investigate most matters of public concern. The most powerful tools
of the committee—like the ability to call a hearing, set its agenda,
and issue subpoenas to compel witnesses to testify or turn over
documents—reside with the Republican chair, since the GOP won a
narrow House majority. But AOC would have other tools, which Democrats
have failed to leverage to their full extent.

As a former Waxman staffer on the Energy and Commerce Committee, I
know that diligent investigative work is a foundation for any
successful oversight leader. But the “Schoolhouse Rock!” version
of congressional oversight, where an oversight committee conducts
fact-finding and discovers a problem for a legislative committee to
fix, rarely happens in practice. Younger members like AOC understand
that when the system doesn’t work, you need to find hacks to improve
people’s lives. Winning the attention economy is one such hack,
perhaps the biggest one. Congressional investigative work must reach
the masses to catalyze the kind of public engagement that will give
you the majorities necessary to pass legislation. Who better to do
that than someone whose Instagram Live videos were compared to FDR’s
fireside chats
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before she was ever sworn into office?

Congressional hearings occasionally produce viral moments, like Rep.
Katie Porter (D-CA) grilling bank CEOs about pay disparities
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Harris (D-CA) questioning Brett Kavanaugh about abortion rights
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And some Democrats like Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) have commendably
convened hearings taking on special interests like Big Oil
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and defense contractors
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But they did not break through to the wider public.

Democrats need a much more systematic strategy for capturing public
attention with splashy and highly visible hearings and investigation
tactics that clearly communicate to the public that they’re on the
side of the working class.

Even in the minority, AOC would be able to issue investigative reports
produced by Democratic committee staff on issues like the cost of
child care and housing, corporate price-gouging, or minimum-wage
violations. These reports typically go unnoticed outside of Capitol
Hill, but AOC could reimagine them in creative ways. Instead of a
traditional written report, the committee could produce
narrative-driven investigative mini-documentaries in the style of the
nonprofit media organization More Perfect Union
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her almost 13 million followers, could reach far more people than a
PDF.

AOC could challenge corporate power by putting CEOs under oath, and
redefine the Democrats as the party of working people.

In the rare cases where committee reports have captured public
attention, they’ve been thorough, exhaustive, labor-intensive
studies like the House Antitrust Subcommittee report on Big Tech
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which then-staffer Lina Khan helped draft. With AOC’s name
recognition and platform, she could attract similarly top-tier
committee staff to produce reports on topics that aren’t discussed
as often, perhaps building the case for policies like Medicare for All
or paid family leave. She could also recruit investigative journalists
and experts from outside Congress to bring in different perspectives
and enhance the depth of the investigative work.

As ranking member, AOC could also request documents or responses to
questions from corporations, even if they aren’t legally required to
respond. Sending a letter to a company demanding documents about an
issue of public concern helps put the issue on the table. Usually
these letters get little attention. Instead of merely sending the
demand letter and issuing a press release or tweet about it, if
companies fail to respond, AOC could tag their CEOs on social media,
drawing attention to their silence. If an airline can auto-respond to
customers whose baggage is lost through Twitter replies, companies
should respond to our democratically elected representatives. This
would demonstrate for a wider public whose side the Democrats are on.

She could also consult the public for topics the committee should
investigate by issuing polls on social media: Health insurers denying
claims for covered procedures? New junk fees that haven’t received
regulatory scrutiny? Behavioral research that Big Tech companies are
withholding from the public about teen smartphone addiction?
Similarly, she could consult the public about which witnesses to
invite to any Republican-convened hearings; usually the minority party
gets a witness. Instead of summoning the usual advocacy group experts,
she could invite more unconventional messengers, like impacted
individuals and constituents. By inviting public input, she would be
inviting a bigger audience.

IF DEMOCRATS WIN BACK THE HOUSE in an anti-Trump backlash in 2026, AOC
would then chair the Oversight Committee and wield its full powers.
She could then call hearings and investigate Trump administration
appointees for myriad abuses, or shine a much brighter light on budget
cuts, privatizations, and DOGE defunding efforts. Rep. Waxman’s
tenure during the Bush administration is instructive, as he doggedly
investigated scandals like Iraq War intelligence failures and no-bid
contracting [[link removed]].

But working to call out the administration is only half of the
equation. She could challenge corporate power by putting CEOs under
oath, and redefine the Democrats as the party of working people. She
could investigate industries that more establishment Democrats are
afraid to take on because of deep party and donor relationships, such
as rideshare companies for misclassifying workers
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white-shoe law firms for enabling tax evasion
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and consulting firms like McKinsey for overbilling the government
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or their complicity in the opioid crisis
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to name a few.

Imagine if in 2022, an AOC-led Oversight Committee hauled in food
conglomerate and retailer CEOs to testify about grocery price
increases, and demand evidence that they weren’t using the
post-pandemic period to inflate their profits. That kind of political
theater could have gone a long way in demonstrating whose side the
Democrats were on in the subsequent national debate about inflation.

She could also tackle issues with cross-partisan appeal. AOC has
already worked on a broadly bipartisan
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anti-corruption measure to rein in congressional stock trading
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There’s growing bipartisan concern about the social harms of online
sports betting
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an issue ripe for investigation from multiple angles, including
app-based gambling addiction
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bankruptcy
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and antitrust
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In 2019, AOC and Bernie Sanders introduced the Loan Shark Prevention
Act
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to cap credit card and consumer loan interest rates at 15 percent.
Given that President Trump and Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) called for
credit card interest rate caps
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during the 2024 campaign, she could call their bluff by holding field
hearings in red states. These hearings could examine exorbitant credit
card interest rates and demonstrate for working-class Trump voters
which party actually stands up to big banks. She could use social
media and even the manosphere podcast universe
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to broaden their reach.

MANY DEMOCRATS ARE UNCOMFORTABLE with political theater because they
think it’s cheap. But in the wake of Trump’s second term,
Democrats like Pete Buttigieg
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Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT)
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and Ro Khanna
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are embracing spectacle and experimenting with ways to reach new
audiences. Image-making gets eyeballs, and an oppositional affect
makes people believe you’ll fight for them. If Trump’s election
and re-election has demonstrated anything, it’s that political power
is downstream of attention.

In the early 1930s, Ferdinand Pecora, chief counsel for the Senate
Banking Committee, organized a series of hearings about the 1929 stock
market crash that “dominated the news” and “called wealthy
powerful bankers and corporate executives” like J.P. Morgan himself
to testify about Wall Street abuses
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leading to the passage of the laws that separated commercial and
investment banking and created the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The Pecora Hearings were so influential that Pecora ended up on the
cover of _Time_ in June 1933
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is uniquely positioned to create similarly powerful moments that may
resonate with a wider public.

When she came on the scene in 2018, AOC captured the public
imagination as a bartender-turned-congresswoman who wanted to be
“the left wing of the possible
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That same year, she and Bernie Sanders held rallies for congressional
candidates in Kansas
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bringing a message of shared economic solidarity transcending race,
geography, and political identity to a red state. That vision is still
within reach for Democrats. By articulating a bold, clear vision for
working-class Americans and leveraging the storytelling power of
congressional oversight in the people’s investigative body, AOC
could help persuade people that genuine economic populism lies with
improving the lives of regular people, not giving tax cuts to the
rich.

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Kiren Gopal is a consumer protection lawyer who previously served as
counsel on the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations of the
House Committee on Energy and Commerce under former ranking member
Henry Waxman from 2012 to 2014.

* Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
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