John Dougherty doesn’t have much of a chance to win Arizona’s U.S. Senate seat this year, but I like the way the former investigative journalist thinks:

[Dougherty] said last week he’d hire up to a dozen investigative reporters to root out government waste and corruption if elected.

The team of reporters would act as a government watchdog, aggressively reporting on government agencies and programs. Their findings, Dougherty said, would be used in regular oversight committee hearings.

“There’s not a lot of accountability out there,” Dougherty said.

It’s a brilliant idea. The founding fathers designed a system of checks and balances so no one branch of government gained undue power, and Congress needs to take its role as a watchdog of the executive branch more seriously. Who better to do the work than journalists who not only have been trained to expose government’s flaws but who also know how to tell great stories?

I wouldn’t vote for a candidate just because he’s pushing the idea, but I would like to see people in power give the concept a try.