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Washington • Shortly into a congressional hearing on security lapses by the Secret Service, Rep. Jason Chaffetz slid into the chairman's seat to wield the gavel.

Call it a test run.

The Utah Republican has made it no secret that he wants to chair the powerful, and highly visible, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and the ongoing investigation into the White House fence jumper has shown how dogged and fierce he can be when he sees an opening.

The Washington Post reported several serious violations of Secret Service protocol; those scoops were helped, in part, by Chaffetz's own probes into the agency, which he says he's been looking at for more than a year as part of a larger review.

That's the job of the Oversight Committee, providing that check and balance of the government. Well, that and being a constant thorn in the administration's side. Chaffetz is good at that.

"Unfortunately, they are failing to do their job," Chaffetz told The Associated Press as the Sept. 19 incident surfaced. "These are good men and women, but the Secret Service leadership has a lot of questions to answer."

"We're inviting more attacks," Chaffetz told The Washington Post days later. "The bad guys are paying attention. … It really scares me."

Chaffetz went on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, ABC News, CBS News; he talked to the Washington Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, USA Today and others. And he was relentless in the congressional hearing, to the point that he got Secret Service Director Julia Pierson to acknowledge she had only briefed the president once about a security breach this year. A day later she resigned.

While Chaffetz notes that his criticism of Secret Service leaders has nothing to do with his bid for the chairmanship, he says whoever heads the Oversight panel needs to be ready to jump on issues like this.

"This is a model of how it should be done," Chaffetz told me recently. "I am demonstrating, I think, that I can do the job."

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And they're off • The race to replace outgoing Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., which will be decided after the election by a steering committee of Republican leaders, is between Chaffetz, Reps. Mike Turner and Jim Jordan of Ohio and Rep. John Mica of Florida. Mica is a former chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Jordan a subcommittee chairman and Turner a key voice on the Armed Services Committee. All three have more seniority than Chaffetz, who came to Congress in 2009.

But none of them can match Chaffetz's media savvy, nor his previous work investigating the Sept. 11, 2012, Benghazi attacks, the IRS probe or any of the other scandals that have been the focus of the committee's attention.

Conservatives are lining up to boost Chaffetz's chances, too.

"It is in the nature of government — especially one as massive and unwieldy as ours — to give rise to corruption, a phenomenon that has no party affiliation," the National Review wrote in a recent column.

"Whoever is in the Executive Mansion, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is a key element of the system of checks and balances that works to expose and correct government malpractice. Jason Chaffetz is the best man to lead it, in what is sure to be a very busy two years."

House leaders will make the decision on the chairman after the election. Until then, Chaffetz will be busy staying visible.

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Burr has reported for The Salt Lake Tribune for nearly a decade from Washington, D.C. He can be reached at tburr@sltrib.com or via Twitter @thomaswburr.