Don't shut down oversight of children's agency

When Olympia says 'don't look here,' it's time to start looking really, really hard. Minnesota's deepening Somali daycare fraud scandal naturally is prompting questions about whether the same thing might be happening in Washington state. And one of the most chilling things I've seen lately from our increasingly imperious Democratic leaders is their effort to squelch independent investigation by the news media.

They're saying inquiry is racist. The attorney general is hinting reporters might be prosecuted under hate-crimes statutes. The House speaker had this to say to a reporter who visited a...