Massachusetts House joins Senate in targeting “offensive language”; “disparaging language has no place in the Commonwealth.”

BY SAM DRYSDALE

STATE HOUSE, BOSTON…..An effort to eliminate outdated and offensive language referring to people with disabilities from Massachusetts state laws cleared the House on Wednesday, setting the stage for the bill to possibly reach the governor’s desk more than 15 years after it was first proposed.

The House’s approval of bill (H 4704) aligns it closely with a Senate version (S 2563T) passed on July 23, marking a breakthrough in a long legislative campaign. If the branches agree on consensus language, final votes would be needed to send a bill to Gov. Maura Healey.

The bill will “make clear to people with disabilities that we’re a welcoming state, so they won’t be offended by language,” Joint Committee on Children, Families and Disabilities Chair Rep. Jay Livingstone said after a House Democratic caucus.

During floor remarks, Livingstone said “disparaging language has no place in the Commonwealth.”

“The bill removes all variations of terms such as handicapped, disabled and mental retardation, and replaces them with person-first language such as person with a disability,” Livingstone said. 

“As lawmakers, we know that words matter,” House Speaker Ron Mariano said. “This legislation is our latest effort to ensure that our state laws do not use antiquated words that carry negative connotations, words that also serve as a reminder of past injustices.”

From the House floor, Rep. Sean Garballey shared a story about his aide, Brian, who has Down syndrome and discovered a slur referring to people with disabilities embedded in state statutes.

“We’ve had at least over five individuals, I think more than that, who lived their lives with Down Syndrome and others with Autism, who have worked for the people’s House or for the Senate. And we deserve better. They deserve better,” Garballey said.

As versions of the legislation were filed repeatedly for over a decade, researchers unearthed more examples of offensive or antiquated terminology, requiring meticulous review and revision. The bill passed Wednesday would amend hundreds of such instances, most often changing terminology like “handicapped” and “disabled,” substituting them with “people with disabilities.”

“I think most people in the commonwealth would say, why did it take so long to do this?” Garballey said. “And the reason is the committee staff of the Children and Families Committee and the committee staff on Ways and Means literally had to go through from the beginning of Mass General Laws to now and go through every single word, every comma, every line, to make sure we updated our laws. That’s why it took so long. But it was worth the wait.”

The House and Senate versions of the bill differ slightly in wording. In several cases, the Senate prefers “people with disabilities,” while the House uses “people who have disabilities.” The Senate also favors the phrase “intellectual, developmental disabilities,” whereas the House uses “mental disability.”

During Senate debate over the summer, lawmakers adopted a Sen. Cindy Creem amendment to replace “hearing impaired” with “deaf and hard of hearing,” following a constituent’s suggestion. The House bill leaves that phrase unchanged in current statutes.

The Senate paired its vote on the disability language bill with another measure (S 1034) that would strip outdated laws related to sodomy, blasphemy, and “common nightwalking” — language senators said discriminates against LGBTQ+ residents. House leaders did not take up that bill this week.

Mariano noted that the House had first advanced the disabilities language bill last session. 

Asked why the House did not pair the vote on archaic terminology with the bill to change outdated laws, like the Senate did, Mariano replied, “Can I ask you — why didn’t they do our bill when we did the first offensive language bill? I think that’s a fairer question, because we did this first.”

Sen. Pat Jehlen, who has championed that chamber’s version of the disability language bill for over a decade, acknowledged when the Senate voted on the legislation this summer that it had been a long road.

“I want to acknowledge that it’s taken 15 years to get to this point, and just say that this is an example of the importance of persistence,” Jehlen said at the time.

She recalled that the first version of the bill, drafted 15 years ago, removed just 10 sections of law containing the word “handicapped.”

As for the bill dealing with blasphemy and other archaic laws, Mariano said, “I don’t know if we have a bill.”

Livingstone interjected, “I actually filed the bill.” He, Mariano, and House Ways and Means Chairman Aaron Michlewitz laughed. 

Livingstone said that the Joint Committee on the Judiciary just gave the House version (H 4396) a favorable recommendation, and it’s now in the House Ways and Means Committee.

“I’m sure the chairman has it in his pile of bills,” Livingstone said. Michlewitz nodded.