"Fourth branch" already names a real American object: independent regulatory commissions from the Interstate Commerce Commission (1887) through the FTC, locked against presidential firing by Humphrey's Executor (1935), diagnosed by the Brownlow Committee (1937) as a headless deposit answerable to the courts only on legality, defended by Landis (1938) as expertise, recanted by the same Landis (1960) as delay, and in 2026 put back under at-will removal in Trump v. Slaughter. The remaining claim is narrower than the title: not "add a fourth branch," but mechanism-lifecycle assurance with a parliamentary response duty, which that administrative fourth branch never held. Brownlow's repair (presidential ownership of the machine) and Landis's (more independent expert commissions) disagree with each other and with a body that publishes findings and forces an answer without writing the rules. Author dispositions stay author-owned.