> You’ve forgotten “industry lobbyists writing the whole thing and giving to a pet lawmaker”.
Lobbyists are made up of teams of lawyers and subject matter experts too. If you don’t like the people your law makers are consulting with, then change your law makers. In a democracy you’re allowed to do that, in the technocratic system described above you wouldn’t be.
> Lobbyists are made up of teams of lawyers and subject matter experts too.
With very different goals.
> In a democracy you’re allowed to do that, in the technocratic system described above you wouldn’t be.
No; in the partially technocratic system I describe - regulatory agency writing regulations based on the goals and authorities the legislature assigns them - the people can vote for lawmakers who a) confirm the President's nominees to run those agencies and b) write new laws adjusting any edge cases where they feel the regulator has conflicted with their intent.
That's the Chevron setup, that has worked quite well in a lot of realms. It's now being disassembled in favor of less democratic setup, where similarly unelected bureaucrats (Federal judges - with lifetime tenure!) and usually zero domain knowledge make the calls.
Lobbyists are made up of teams of lawyers and subject matter experts too. If you don’t like the people your law makers are consulting with, then change your law makers. In a democracy you’re allowed to do that, in the technocratic system described above you wouldn’t be.