Had Congress more actively weighed a mandate, members of the public could have called or written their representative, organized a rally outside their office, pressed them with any number of arguments for or against, and perhaps inspired amendments to improve a proposal. Members could have cast votes on amendments, clarifying their views, or horse-traded in ways that made more interest groups happy or fewer unhappy. And, wherever you stand, you could hold your representative accountable. (The next time your senators are up for reelection, you can hold them accountable.)

Across policy matters, federal bureaucrats are inaccessible to Americans and unaccountable to voters. Political insulation could conceivably help them decide on smarter policies than whatever would make it through Congress on certain occasions. But Wallach pointed out that politics is not merely a process by which the government solves social problems efficiently. That common but “impoverished” view presumes that government confronts clear, well-formulated problems, “but in fact political work is much harder,” he wrote, “because the basic dimensions not only of the solutions, but also of the problems themselves, are contested.”

For example, if we presume that the primary problem is that COVID-19 makes many workplaces unsafe, some OSHA bureaucrats may have more expertise than any legislator addressing it. But for many, a federal vaccine mandate implicates matters beyond workplace safety.