‘Time for Some Accountability’: Advocate Says Democrats Must Subpoena Corporate Price-Gougers

After receiving a resounding mandate to act on America’s cost-of-living crisis, Democrats are considering bringing corporate executives before Congress in January.

The Washington Sun reported Thursday that House Democrats on the Judiciary and Oversight committees are examining a 181-page dossier created by Groundwork Collaborative, a consumer advocacy group that has chronicled “price gouging” by grocery chains and retailers like Walmart.

According to the Sun, the document singles out some of "the biggest tech giants, artificial intelligence labs, natural gas firms, private prisons and nursing home operators, among dozens of others," including for their alleged roles in driving up prices for cash-strapped Americans in recent years.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who is expected to take over as chair of the House Judiciary Committee in January, told the Sun that his staff had been examining potential investigations, but he remained vague about his plans.

“We’re not targeting particular corporations,” Raskin said. “We’re targeting systems and networks of corruption, and to the extent corporations are involved, they are subject to the oversight project of Congress and our subpoena authority like everyone else.”

Democrats steamrolled across the map in Tuesday's midterms, with 48% of voters saying that the cost of living was the single most important issue motivating them, according to a pre-election survey by Reuters/Ipsos.

Lindsay Owens, Groundwork’s president and CEO, said that, to fulfill their campaign-trail promises to fight for “affordability,” Democratic lawmakers must relentlessly pursue accountability for corporate greed.

“Last night made it pretty clear: People are sick and tired of corporate America scheming its way to record profits while the rest of us get stuck with the bill,” she wrote on social media Wednesday. “Haul in corporate CEOs. Put them under oath. Make them answer for the rip-offs. Time for some accountability.”

In a Tuesday podcast appearance with Theo Von before the election, Owens said Democrats must zero in on what she has called corporate America’s “reinvention of the rip-off” over the past five years, which has involved increasingly targeted and sophisticated methods—including algorithmic price-fixing, junk fees, and subscription traps—to squeeze every possible cent out of consumers.

Rather than focusing solely on investigating President Donald Trump and his administration, Owens said Democrats also need to bring in "everyone from corporate America" and take them to task for their pricing tactics.

“Put the CEO of Walmart in the hot seat and [say], ‘Tell me what’s going on with Sparky,’” she said, referencing an artificial intelligence-powered chatbot the company launched last year. Executives have boasted during an earnings call that consumers who use the shopping assistant spend an average of 40% more per order than those who do not.

She said the CEO of DoorDash should also be called to testify over its planned "agitation index," which would have monitored users' scrolling speed, jerky movements, battery level, and other variables to adjust what they see on the app. The company withdrew its patent application for the technology two days after Owens testified before the US Senate, warning it could be used to hike prices on hungry customers.

The CEO of Uber, she said, should also be brought in to explain why customers have been charged dramatically different fares for the same route using algorithms that the company has said are based on what a consumer is willing to pay.

Much of what has already been documented about these practices comes from publicly available sources, such as patent filings and “the stuff they’re stupid enough to say to their investors” on earnings calls, Owens said.

But with control of House and Senate committees, she said, Democrats will have the power to force companies to "turn over their books, their algorithm... all of the stuff that they don't want us to see."

She said, "That will require ticking off some companies and ticking off some lobbyists and doing business a little differently than Washington has done business in the past."