Kathleen Gray

Detroit Free Press Lansing Bureau

LANSING — The Michigan Legislature has been banishing offensive and archaic words from state laws for the last few years. And on Tuesday, the House of Representatives added “colored persons” and "white persons" to the list of words they want removed from the books.

By a 106-0 vote, the House of Representatives voted to remove the words "white persons" and "colored persons" from the state insurance code, which prohibits life insurance companies from discriminating against people when setting premiums or rates for life insurance policies. The bill would remove references to "white persons" and "colored persons" and prohibit insurance companies from describing people or setting rates based on race.

The bill also increases fines for violations of the law from $500 to $10,000 per violation.

The bill came about when state Rep. Martin Howrylak, a Troy Republican and self-described CPA nerd, was investigating state law for language offensive to the deaf community. As a result, bills that remove the words "deaf and dumb" and "hearing-impaired," in favor of the terms "deaf," "hard of hearing" and "deafness" received final passage last week in the state Senate and await Gov. Rick Snyder's signature.

"I was doing a search and found that there were six references to 'deaf and dumb' in state statute," Howrylak said. "And I thought what else could possibly be offensive in state law, and I put in a few searches and I came up with (colored persons)."

The insurance code, which was passed in 1963, was the only place where Howrylak found the reference, so he sponsored the bill — HB 5380 — that got unanimous support Tuesday and now moves to the Senate for consideration.

Those aren't the only references recently removed. In 2014, the Legislature acted to remove all references to the word "retarded" and "mental retardation" from state statute. Advocates found the terminology offensive and it's been replaced in state law with "developmentally disabled" or "intellectually disabled."

In March, the Legislature approved bills that remove the terms "venereal disease" from state laws, replacing it with "sexually transmitted infection." The World Health Organization made the switch in the 1990s to the more accurate language.

Contact Kathleen Gray: 313-223-4430 or kgray99@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @michpoligal.