BOZELL & GRAHAM: When Actors Play Scientist On Capitol Hill

Celebrity testimony is an age-old political stunt on Capitol Hill. If you want the press at your hearing, you lunge at the chance to have a star athlete, or a famous singer or actor, bring some zing to your issue. Democrats do this better because they have a lot more friends in Hollywood and they’re always more willing to push the envelope with silliness. When you want to push your agenda on agriculture to the left and you need attention, you get Jane Fonda, Jessica Lange and Sissy Spacek to testify. Their credentials? They all starred in movies about agriculture.

Another example of this happened on Nov. 19 when the House Oversight and Reform subcommittee on environment, chaired by Rep. Harley Rouda, D-Calif., called upon the Bernie Sanders-backing actor Mark Ruffalo to testify on perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl chemicals, or “PFAS.”