When the public weighs in on proposed regulation, does it matter?

The Department of Labor has a new rule it wants to get on the books that would change the way restaurants treat tips. It’s called the tip-pooling rule, and would let workers in the back of the house, like dishwashers and prep cooks, share the tips made by the servers in the front of the house. It would also give employers the right to decide how to distribute those tips. Right now, the rule is in its public comment period, when the public gets to weigh in. Controversial rules, like the tip-pooling one, can attract hundreds of thousands of comments. The Federal Communications Commission netted 22 million comments leading up to its vote to do away with net neutrality. So, do those comments make a difference?