[Vision2020] Outdated Language Targeted

[Tom Hansen]

Courtesy of today's (February 9, 2010) Spokesman-Review.

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Outdated language targeted
Bill would cut ‘idiot,’ ‘retarded’ from laws
Betsy Z. Russell, The Spokesman-Review

BOISE – After Idaho hosted the Special Olympics World Winter Games last
year, state Sen. Les Bock, D-Boise, said he was startled when reading
through Idaho statutes to see outmoded terminology like “mentally
retarded,” “mentally deficient” and even “lunatic” and “idiot.”

Hosting athletes from around the world with mental disabilities, Bock
said, “I think 
 made all of us a little more sensitive with respect to
some of the language we use.”

So the Boise attorney began working with state officials to search through
state laws and found lots of that kind of wording. A half-dozen meetings
followed with state Health and Welfare officials, the Idaho Council on
Developmental Disabilities, the courts, the state Department of Insurance
and more.

In the end, Bock came up with an 84-page bill to update the wording in
several sections of Idaho state law, from the probate code (which referred
to “a decedent, an infant, lunatic or insolvent”) to the death penalty
(which included a section headed, “Imposition of death penalty upon
mentally retarded person prohibited”).

As the bill took shape, a section about “Contracts of Idiots” became
“Contracts of Persons Without Understanding.” A clause about vocational
education programs that said “handicapped students” was switched to
“students with disabilities.”

When Bock presented the bill Monday to the Idaho Senate Judiciary and
Rules Committee, state Sen. Shirley McKague, R-Meridian, asked if it would
penalize people who use the outdated terms. Bock said no. “That’s not in
the bill,” he said. “It’s not about requiring people to speak in a certain
way. It’s about the language in the statute.”

Bock said the Special Olympics, which drew international attention to
Idaho and brought hundreds of Idahoans out as volunteers to help with the
games, opened his eyes about language referring to people with
disabilities.

“We shouldn’t be labeling them in a way that’s disrespectful,” he said.

State Sen. Mike Jorgenson, R-Hayden Lake, noted that the long bill also,
in one instance, changes the term “Afro-American” to “African-American.”
Bock said that was simply a matter of updating a term that’s no longer in
use.

The bill also, in several instances, changes the word “handicapped” to
“impaired,” and removes the term “the mentally retarded” in favor of
“people with intellectual disabilities.” In all cases, Bock said, “the
goal was absolutely no change in the substance of the law.”

The Senate committee voted unanimously to introduce the bill. To become
law, it still needs to survive full committee hearings and votes in both
houses, plus receive the governor’s signature.

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Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

"The Pessimist complains about the wind, the Optimist expects it to change
and the Realist adjusts his sails."

- Unknown