What is strange with that? This setup are quite common in Civil law[0]. I believe it roughly works the same way at least in the other Scandinavian countries and Germany to.
I don't like it. The law is immutable in a trial and should be interpreted by a professional judge. The control mechanism preventing the judge from unfair interpretation should not be amateur, social conservative, middle age men participating in police interest groups on their spare time ("jäv", happened more than once)
Of course, no system is perfect.
Police interest group sounds like a a group of tommy tactical types that wear cargo pants, and spend a lot of their time at the range or talking about what they EDC.
Not in the Germany I live in
I believe that a German municipal council and a Swedish municipal assembly is basicly the same, and both are staffed with elected officials ( aka "politicians").
In Germany a list of lay judges is generated. Either by random, by committees, churches, unions etc. This is not defined. Then the municipal assembly takes this list and filters those of the list that should not become lay judges. The list goes to the court and the court then votes with a committee the lay judges (two third majority).
It might be subject to discussion, to me this is not identical to "Appointed by politicians".
I feel sorry for the lawyers that live on the border of LA and need to be proficient in their state's laws as well as LA's. Bar prep must have been awful.