No One Testifies At Hearing On MA Bill To Ban The Word 'Bitch'

BOSTON — No one testified at a hearing Tuesday on a bill that would make it illegal for someone to use the word "bitch" to accost, annoy, degrade or demean another person. The bill is one of about 70 that were heard at the hearing. The bill was submitted by State Rep. Daniel Hunt, a Dorchester Democrat, under a "by request" petition from a constituent.

"I got a lot of calls on this about it being a waste of time, yet thousands of people wasted time calling me the b-word," Hunt said. In an interview on WEEI Wednesday, Hunt said the law was written into the state constitution by founders who had just broken from the British crown and wanted to preserve the rights of the common citizen.

If passed, legislative observers said, it would almost certainly be shot down as a clear-cut infringement of the First Amendment right to free expression. The request for the bill was made by one of Hunt's constituents. But the bill — and hundreds of others like it filed under the "by request" provision — has almost no shot of passing.

"She asked me to file it, and I filed it," Hunt said. "I think it's great that it's drawn attention to the process, but I'd myuch rather be talking about things like the education bill."