[zzzmarcus]

Can someone explain to me why Congress gets involved in investigating things like Toyota's manufacturing defects or the way college football teams are ranked?

Does Congress have a legal mandate to investigate anything it deems to be interesting/fishy/a potential target for legislation? Has Congress always conducted these types of investigations or is it a modern phenomenon?

[whyenot]

cynic: Congress' mandate is to investigate anything that will get votes, or campaign funds.

Wikipedia: Investigative hearings share some of the characteristics of legislative and oversight hearings. The difference lies in Congress’s stated determination to investigate, usually when there is a suspicion of wrongdoing on the part of public officials acting in their official capacity, or private citizens whose activities suggest the need for a legislative remedy. Congress’s authority to investigate is broad and it has exercised this authority since the earliest days of the republic. Its most famous inquiries are benchmarks in American history: Credit Mobilier, Teapot Dome, Army-McCarthy, Watergate, and Iran-Contra. Investigative hearings often lead to legislation to address the problems uncovered. Judicial activities in the same area of Congress’s investigation may precede, run simultaneously with, or follow such inquiries.

It's not a recent phenomenon at all. For example, the Crédit Mobilier hearings were in 1872.

[zzzmarcus]

Thanks for the answer. The difference is that the scandals in the Wikipedia article all directly involve government:

Credit Mobilier: "The distribution of Crédit Mobilier stocks by Congressman Oakes Ames along with cash bribes to congressmen"

Teapot Dome: "control of U.S. Navy petroleum reserves at Teapot Dome in Wyoming and at Elk Hills and Buena Vista in California, were transferred from the U.S. Navy Department to the Department of the Interior"

And Army-McCarthy, Watergate and Iran-Contra are all obviously directly tied to the government.

In those cases it makes sense for Congress to get involved. It's when Congress start to investigate "private citizens whose activities suggest the needs for legislative remedy" that I get concerned. That type of broad power apparently gives them free-reign to investigate anything they don't like.

It seems to me that in the past (15 or 20+ years ago) Congress didn't get involved in non-government related "scandals" like Toyota and college football, I'd be interested if anyone has examples to the contrary.

[whyenot]

"Baseball Probe Begins Tomorrow" - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 29, 1951.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=DDAbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=d...

There are lots of other examples if you search newspaper archives using Google News. I encourage you to go look for yourself.

[evgen]

Seeing as how the government is in charge of setting the safety standards for the nations interstate highways and is responsible (via the NHTSA) for regulating the safety of cars on the road I am wondering how in the world you would not think this is the sort of thing Congress should investigate? If you are looking for a specific justification, examine the commerce clause of the us constitution.

[jswinghammer]

They're effectively major stockholders of several competing companies. They have every reason to get involved.

It also allow them to organize two minute hate sessions for the media's consumption.

[ryoshu]

Any company that deals in interstate commerce -- or international commerce -- falls under the purview of Congress.

Article I, Section 8, Clause 3

[dwwoelfel]

Are we really downvoting facts now? I assume that the people who are downvoting don't think that the commerce clause should be used to grant congress such wide powers. I agree, but you can't just downvote the situation. You have to recognize the problem before you can fix it. So thanks, ryoshu, for reminding me of the part of the constitution that needs to be amended.

[idoh]

Don't hate the players, hate the game. They do what they do to get reelected.

[MikeCapone]

I'm pretty sure I can still hate the players.

[CamperBob]

Toyota walked into a rotating fan blade. This was a really bad time to give Congress an excuse to concern-troll them, given that the government is now a direct stakeholder in the US auto industry.