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In April 1994, former Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) convened a landmark series of “Big Tobacco” hearings. CEOs like 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 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 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 to become the top Democrat, or ranking member, on the House Oversight Committee. In December, AOC lost the high-profile job to then-74-year-old Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA), after Nancy Pelosi campaigned against her. The contest was a 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, because his cancer has returned. He’s looking to anoint the 70-year-old Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA) 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 for AOC, given the large crowds turning out to her rallies with Bernie Sanders 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, 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.

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 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 or then-Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) questioning Brett Kavanaugh about abortion rights. And some Democrats like Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) have commendably convened hearings taking on special interests like Big Oil and defense contractors. 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. These videos, shared with 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, 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.

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, white-shoe law firms for enabling tax evasion, and consulting firms like McKinsey for overbilling the government or their complicity in the opioid crisis, 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 anti-corruption measure to rein in congressional stock trading. There’s growing bipartisan concern about the social harms of online sports betting, an issue ripe for investigation from multiple angles, including app-based gambling addiction, excessive debt and bankruptcy, and antitrust.

In 2019, AOC and Bernie Sanders introduced the Loan Shark Prevention Act 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 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 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, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), and Ro Khanna 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, 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. AOC 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.” That same year, she and Bernie Sanders held rallies for congressional candidates in Kansas, 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.