Company built up influence

February 9, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The lawmakers now investigating Toyota’s recall include a senator who was so eager to lure the Japanese automaker to his state that he tramped along through fields as its executives scouted plant sites, and a congresswoman who owes much of her wealth to a Toyota supplier.

They and others on the congressional committees investigating Toyota’s massive recall represent states where Toyota has factories and the coveted well-paying manufacturing jobs they bring. Some members of Congress have been such cheerleaders for Toyota that the public may wonder how they can act objectively as government watchdogs for auto safety and oversight. The company’s executives include a former employee of the federal agency that is supposed to oversee the automaker.

Toyota has sought to sow good will and win allies with lobbying, charitable giving, racing in the American-as-apple pie NASCAR series and, perhaps most important, creating jobs. Will those connections pay off as it tries to minimize fallout from its problems?

The Senate’s lead Toyota investigator, West Virginia Democrat Jay Rockefeller, credits himself with lobbying Toyota to build a factory in his state. A member of a House investigating panel, California Rep. Jane Harman, represents the district of Toyota’s U.S. headquarters and has financial ties to the company.

Harman and her husband, Sidney, held at least $115,000 in Toyota stock as of her most recent financial-disclosure report. The company to which the couple owes much of their multimillion-dollar fortune, Harman International Industries, founded by Sidney Harman, sells vehicle audio and entertainment systems to Toyota. The two companies teamed up on a charitable education project in 2003, when Sidney Harman was Harman International’s executive chairman. He retired from the Harman board in December 2008.

Rockefeller, chairman of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, has known Toyota’s founding family since the 1960s. He was so closely involved with Toyota’s selection of Buffalo, W.Va., for a factory that he slogged through cornfields with Toyota executives scouting locations and still mentions his role in the 1990s deal to this day.

Rockefeller’s committee is expected to review whether the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration acted aggressively enough toward Toyota.