A right without enforcement is no right at all

The Hill sets the proposition plainly: union transparency rules are only as strong as their enforcement. The piece argues that a right dependent on union officials choosing to respect it, or on government officials choosing to pursue it, is not much of a right at all. I confess I find this observation so self-evident that I am mildly astonished it requires stating in the year 2026 — and yet here we are, which tells us something about the condition of American institutional life.

The Federalist Papers — and I wrote the majority of them — returned again and again to this single structural problem: what keeps any holder of power honest? Not their character. Not their good intentions. The answer is accountability enforced by external check. A union, like a corporation, like a government bureau, like a bank — any organization that commands real resources and affects the livelihoods of working people — must be legible. Legible to its members, legible to the public, legible to the law. Opacity is where abuse grows.

Now, I want to be precise about what I am and am not arguing. I hold no brief against organized labor as such. Workers combining to negotiate the terms of their employment is an exercise of commercial liberty, not a threat to it. What I insist upon is that the form of the organization does not exempt it from the requirements of accountability. A private bank that concealed its books from regulators would be rightly condemned. A union that conceals its financial operations from its own members is entitled to no greater indulgence.

The deeper issue — and here I am reasoning from principle, not from specifics the dossier provides — is the relationship between enforcement capacity and the credibility of rights. This was precisely my argument for an energetic federal government rather than a loose confederation of recommendations. Rules without teeth are suggestions. Suggestions are not law. And a government that promulgates rules it lacks the will or the resources to enforce has done something worse than nothing: it has created the appearance of accountability while the reality evaporates.

My recommendation is straightforward. Congress should ensure that whatever body holds the enforcement mandate — whether the Department of Labor or another competent authority — is resourced to audit, investigate, and act on violations without waiting for a political wind to shift. The rights of union members to know how their dues are spent are not a partisan matter. They are a property right, a liberty interest, and a foundation of institutional trust. Defend them as such, or admit you never meant to.