I suspect the problem runs deeper than this. There is no shortage of clueful people willing to advise senators for free (I have personally offered to do so, for example). Also I spent 1/2 day in the company of a staffer for one of our senators last year. Based on that experience they are not really short of technology savvy. Somehow their business model depends on appearing to not understand technology.

Or maybe just spend more time with aides trying to grasp the technical issues?

I'm going to send some letters to my Senators and Representative asking them to work closely with the EFF, EPIC, etc. to formulate any regulation on this, rather than Facebook itself.

Well yeah, engineers should participate; not only as senators.