Fiscal Note
No fiscal impact.
Title
SUBSTITUTE: Amending 1.01(2) and creating 1.01(14) of the Madison General Ordinances to update gender-inclusive language pronouns.
Body
DRAFTER’S ANALYSIS: This ordinance states that the City Attorney’s Office will draft ordinances using gender-inclusive language. In addition, this ordinance authorizes the City Attorney’s Office to make and codify changes to the existing ordinances to align with the City’s gender-inclusive policies. For example, the City will no longer use gender specific pronouns (he, she, his, hers) in new ordinances or ordinance amendments. This ordinance amendment acknowledges and encourages the singular use of “they”, “them” and “their” as gender-inclusive pronouns appropriate for individuals and groups. Other gender-specific terms will be amended to be gender-inclusive. For example, terms such as “alderman” will be changed to gender-inclusive terms such as “alder”. Finally, this ordinance authorizes the City Attorney’s Office to make editorial changes to all existing ordinances to align with the City’s gender-inclusive policies.
The substitute amends the title of the ordinance revision.
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The Common Council of the City of Madison do hereby ordain as follows:
1. Subsection (2) entitled “Gender - Singular and Plural” of Section 1.01 entitled “Construction of Ordinances” of the Madison General Ordinances is amended as follows:
“(2) Gender - Singular and Plural Gender-Inclusive Language . Every word in any ordinance importing the masculine gender shall extend to and be applied to females as well as males; and every word importing the singular number only shall extend and be applied to several persons or things as well as to one person or thing; and every word importing the plural number only shall extend and be applied to one person or thing as well as to several persons or things.
(a) Madison General Ordinances shall be drafted with gender-inclusive language consistent with Administrative Procedure Memoranda 2-52 and its attachments and resources.
(b) The words “they”, “them”, and “their” may be used as a singular pronoun to refer to one individual person. The singular “they” is grammatically correct.
(c) The Common Council authorizes the Office of the City Attorney to make the appropriate changes to the ordinances consistent with this section and to implement the codification of such changes without further action of the Council.
2. Subsection (14) entitled “Singular and Plural” of Section 1.01 entitled “Construction of Ordinances” of the Madison General Ordinances is created as follows:
“(14) Singular and Plural . Every word in any ordinance importing the singular number shall extend and be applied to several persons or things as well as to one person or thing; and every word importing the plural number shall extend and be applied to one person or thing as well as to several persons or things.