Boards, Not Ballots
Utility commissions, port authorities, and transit boards make decisions with enormous public consequence. Almost nobody knows who sits on them.
A public authority is a useful invention. It can issue debt, hold assets, and operate on a longer horizon than an elected government, which makes it well suited to infrastructure that outlasts any administration.
It is also, by construction, insulated. Members are appointed rather than elected, terms are staggered so that no single governor controls the body, and revenue often comes from fees rather than appropriations, which removes the budget process as a lever.
Each of those features was a deliberate answer to a real failure. Together they produce entities that set rates, approve projects, and take on debt with little practical accountability to anyone.
The reform that works is not abolition, which would be worse. It is visibility: publishing agendas early, recording proceedings, and requiring appointing authorities to explain their choices in public. Insulation from politics was the point. Insulation from attention was not.
Priya Raghunathan writes for The 13th Bell on power. This piece was edited and fact checked before publication.
Get The 13th Bell in your inbox
.jpg?width=900)
