NBA refs and the legislative problem of street-level bureaucrats

In Congress, and in government generally, one basic problem is enforcement of law. Although sometimes people on the Hill act like you solve a problem as soon as you pass a law, the reality is that almost every legislative act requires some amount of executive implementation and/or enforcement. We often think about this as an elite-level problem. How will the White House prioritize where to put their energy and political resources? How well will the political appointees govern the agencies and implement law? What criminal laws will DOJ emphasize and deemphasize, given limited resources and prosecutorial discretion? This is all natural, and it's one reason that policy can change so much from administration to administration, even without much change in law. Executive governance exists in both natural and delegated discretion in law. The choices made by executives matter. But a more basic question of governance discretion resides with the street-level bureaucrats. These are the agents of…