From The Hill:

The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee on Wednesday unanimously approved a bill that would eliminate the use of the words “retarded” and “retardation” in federal health, education and labor law.

Rosa’s Law, introduced by Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), had strong bipartisan support.

It would replace the terms “mental retardation” with “intellectual disability” and “mentally retarded individual” to “individual with an intellectual disability.”

Let’s shoot straight here: I loathe political correctness. With every fiber of my being. Here’s definition of mental retardation:

Main Entry: mental retardation

: subaverage intellectual ability equivalent to or less than an IQ of 70 that is accompanied by significant deficits in abilities (as in communicationor self-care) necessary for independent daily functioning, is present from birth or infancy, and is manifested especially by delayed or abnormal development, by learning difficulties, and by problems in social adjustment

— mentally retarded adjective

Washington has a habit of pretending that words don’t actually mean what they mean. Is this a pointless law? Yes.

However, I would let it slide if the Senate didn’t have important things going on. Like, oh, millions of gallons of oil gushing into the Gulf, for example.

But then Washington also has a habit of ignoring their priorities.