Commissions succeed only when empowered to recommend and led by political actors, not academics

Evidence

Some who support reparations may nevertheless oppose creating a PtSD Commission because they argue that commissions are places where good ideas go to die. They provide elected leaders with plausible deniability. Biden’s Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States, which he created in April 2021 via executive order, is the perfect example. Commissions can definitely be useful stalling tactics. But the CWRIC was not, and a PtSD Commission could similarly be designed to succeed. You can tell which commissions will be productive from those that will not by two important metrics: their charge and their composition. President Biden’s Supreme Court Commission was doomed by both. Its charge did not allow for it to make recommendations, as its sole function was to produce a report. Second, it was composed of too many academics. (In my opinion, academics are good at informing and deliberating but are not so good at politics and getting things done, even if recommendations had been allowed.) — Dorothy A. Brown, Getting to Reparations, 527

Categorization

• XREF: Connects directly to her larger argument that feasibility of reparations hinges on institutional design — echoes the diagnosis-to-remedy genre shift. — connects to: Merit selection commissions cannot be fully insulated from interest-group influence — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 442
• SEED: A contrarian take on presidential commissions as stalling devices vs. genuine engines — useful for public-commentary writing.