Noah Feldman, Columnist

Republicans Can't Get Rid of These Watchdogs

The free press provides a constitutional check on one-party government.

January 3, 2017 at 7:49 PM UTC

Noah Feldman is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A professor of law at Harvard University, he is author, most recently, of “To Be a Jew Today: A New Guide to God, Israel, and the Jewish People."

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The stealth Republican move Monday night to weaken the ethics oversight office in the House of Representatives is a good reminder that the U.S. Constitution provides only limited protections when a single party rules. But the swift rollback of the plan on Tuesday is also a good reminder that the Constitution does have an oversight mechanism built in: the press. When one party controls the legislature and presidency, the “Fourth Estate” isn’t just a metaphor. It’s a necessity for functioning free government.

The Office of Congressional Ethics wouldn’t be anomalous in northern Europe, where many countries have independent ombudsman offices that oversee government ethics. But it’s a fairly unusual entity in U.S. terms. It was created in 2008, not by a law requiring a presidential signature, but in a resolution passed by the House itself, under Democratic leadership.