So... there’s a common misunderstanding among people who don’t have experience in large scale organization of multidisciplinary and diverse operations. Those skills are themselves a discipline requiring a lifetime of study and experience. But let’s examine this: It’s very common for many leadership roles
In government to REQUIRE a legal background.
From the legal advisors for a city or state, to the prosecutors, district attorneys, attorney generals, etc. Now, when you go looking for someone to run a city or county or state etc. For them to be effective you’ll generally want someone with experience at it. That means you might look at whoever runs the prosecutors office or the cities legal department, the courts, does budgets and taxes etc. People who are connected, who know how to run large entities and work across departments, and who have experience behind the scenes in how a city is ran and what works or doesn’t.
Other government employees who might be qualified? Police Chiefs/Commissioners, School Superintendents, and heads of large departments. But... their jobs don’t generally expose them to the workings of a large local government in the way many law jobs do- instead they expose them to a sub area. An executive in the police might have the experience. But.. they also probably aren’t a scientist either, and most likely have a sting background in... Law? Psychology? Perhaps?
When it comes time to run for a larger office like a state office- people usually want someone with experience at the city or county level. It’s not as hard to be elected sheriff of a rural county as it is to become mayor of a medium town, or governor. Those with a background in law tend to have the connections, money, and skill sets; and are more likely to have experience in a broad scope of management, than many others like scientists.
In point of fact- how many large companies are owned, ran, or even have a majority executive leadership with a science background? It’s not very common. Because nothing you learn in a science major save perhaps some of the math- is really applicable to business and management. If you spend time gaining connections and soft skills, learning to manage well all these other things; that doesn’t leave much time for science does it? If you spend your time on science- that doesn’t leave much time to learn to wrangle business or politics does it?
Either way you’ll either end up with subject matter experts who need to be advised what to do by teams of political and legal experts; or political and legal experts who need to be advised by teams of scientists and technical people. The real question then, since everyone will end up needing advisors to guide them, is: Who has the skills and experience to lead? Because you can’t really outsource the ability to make the decisions or inspire people to follow them.
Here’s a “TL:dr” thought: Scientists on the whole make shitty politicians and that’s why you don’t see more. Most of the worlds scientists have been shouting at politicians for decades that the planet is going to fall apart and kill us all. They have pretty concrete evidence and many can SEE for themselves some extreme changes going on. Yet... What’s been done? Now, the lawyers and business folks? They can repeal elements of the constitution, convince the country to build a giant wall, start wars, and abolish the link between money and tangible assets... and do all of it on barely a grain of proof. Sadly- the smartest person in a room isn’t the default effective leader.
I would argue that politicians do occasionally also do work that matters, but, regardless, I agree that's probably where the scientists and engineers are.
In government to REQUIRE a legal background.