The Silly Bill Award of 2008 goes to Congressman Anthony Weiner, who represents a squiggly bit of Long Island close to Manhattan. Representative Weiner is generally progressive, and I don’t have a beef with him in general, but I did roll my eyes this morning when I read H.R. 4080, the Fashion Model Importation Act.
The legislation, which Congressman Weiner introduced back in November, was put on the House calendar for consideration just yesterday. It proposes to create a special category for entry into the United States for fashion models. The bill would give special customs privileges for visiting the USA to “a fashion model who is of distinguished merit and ability and who is seeking to enter the United States temporarily to perform fashion modeling services that involve events or productions which have a distinguished reputation or that are performed for an organization or establishment that has a distinguished reputation for, or a record of, utilizing prominent modeling talent”.
This legislation is straight out of Zoolander. How exactly is the Customs Service supposed to judge whether a foreign fashion model has “distinguished merit and ability”? Are we now to issue special visas for men and women because they look pretty and know how to pout effectively? Will the American economy go into crisis if we don’t allow pretty people to cut ahead of other people in line at our borders?
What is Congressman Weiner implying – that it is in the national interest to import fashion models from overseas because Americans are ugly and don’t know how to dress well?
There are no cosponsors for H.R. 4080.
