Oversight is a matter of someone paying attention. Just as every writer needs an editor, those doing work that affects the community need monitoring to assure that their work is effective, of high quality, and follows rules and regulations properly. When you are referring to the word that means the failure to notice something, the correct word to use is oversight, not oversite. However, these words are not synonymous and cannot be used interchangeably with one another. The Levin Center’s work focuses on enabling lawmakers and the public to recognize the unique role that oversight plays in our democracy the duty legislators have to conduct high-quality, fact-based, bipartisan oversight and the tools and practices any lawmaker can use (in the words of Senator Carl Levin) “to get to the heart of the matter” and serve our democracy. An oversight mechanism is the system or process used to maintain a watchful eye. Both oversight and oversite are words that exist in the English language. It is meant to be the eyes and the voice, and to embody the wisdom and will of its constituents.” The Supreme Court has summarized the legislature’s unique duty to conduct government oversight in several cases upholding Congress’s right to enforce its subpoenas by quoting Woodrow Wilson’s seminal observation: “It is the proper duty of a representative body to look diligently into every affair of government and to talk much about what it sees. Armed with facts gained from oversight, legislatures can establish new or improve existing government programs, better allocate taxpayer dollars, address abuses, and provide needed checks and balances across government. Lawmakers examine a sweeping array of societal concerns, existing government programs, private sector abuses, disasters, crises, and scandals. Our constitutional system grants Congress and the 50 state legislatures a unique power to conduct far-reaching public investigations into important issues and, when necessary, to compel people to share documents and provide testimony.

Award for Excellence in Oversight Research.Carl Levin Award for Effective Oversight.

Oversight definition