I think the process is quite opaque. I follow DPO pretty closely, but I wasn’t aware that nominations had opened, for example. In recent years, there were at least announcements to that effect. But realistically, the announcement would need to come well before nominations open, so that people have time to prepare their candidacy.
I have absolutely zero doubts that there are many highly talented and capable people in the wider Python ecosystem that would do an excellent job on the steering council. But we’d need to open the door more explicitly to attract people from outside the inner-most core developer circle.
I’m happy to “threaten” to put my hat into the ring, if only as an absolute lower bound to motivate more people to self-nominate. 