It's all about checks and balances. When elected representatives have experts of their own, experts whom they trust, they are not as much at the mercy of the go

It's all about checks and balances. When elected representatives have experts of their own, experts whom they trust, they are not as much at the mercy of the government and the lobbyists. It's the same thing as with elections. You can trust the elections without trusting the government running them, because the party you vote has its own people overseeing the elections. And it's always a party you vote, even in systems where you nominally cast your vote for an individual candidate, because individuals acting on their own are too weak to challenge the system. The experts you are aware of may be members of a political party, participating in the internal processes of the party to varying degrees. It's one way to be an active citizen. You usually don't know that, because it's not your business to know. Political affiliation is a private matter, after all.