As the fifth national bioethics commission completes its work and the sixth begins, this paper argues for a reevaluation of how to measure a commission's success. It suggests that traditional metrics fail to capture the commission's role as a public forum. From a democratic perspective, public engagement—encompassing addressing public concerns, understanding citizen moral resolutions in healthcare, and monitoring public opinion—is crucial. This role is supported by bioethics literature, historical reform discourses, and examples from significant social issues commissions of the 1960s.