WASHINGTON (AP) — The D.C. Council has passed a measure banning members from using profanity during public meetings.
The council unanimously approved the resolution without debate Tuesday.
Council Chairman Kwame R. Brown pushed the resolution after D.C. Council members Marion Barry and David Catania got into a profanity-laced shouting match during a retreat last week. It bars members from using “profane, indecent or abusive language” during meetings.
If a Council member violates the new rules, Brown will be empowered to try to remove that member from the meeting.
Brown says the chairman could remove a member from a meeting after a warning about inappropriate language. The council doesn’t have a sergeant-at-arms, but he says the measure would get across the point about the need to be civil.
Brown also says the policy puts into code internal policies he implemented in the fall.
Catania is unapologetic about the encounter, according to Huffington Post, during which he called the former mayor “a despicable human being” and “full of s***.” This was apparently the spark that exploded into a shouting match of expletives between the two.