INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana lawmakers file hundreds of bills every session, but not all make it to the finish line: the governor’s desk.
Some bills don’t even get a hearing in the committee where they’re assigned. It’s all up to the lawmaker heading up a committee to decide which bills do. That can be a frustrating part of the legislative process, as one Hoosier mom said she’s finding out.
“This is not something that’s easy to do,” said Heather Garvey, as she recounted how her 9-year-old son Mason died of cancer in June 2020.
Garvey though, is doing it anyway, reliving and talking about Mason’s fight after doctors diagnosed him with embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma.
“Mason’s was in his pelvic area. That’s where we discovered it,” Garvey said.
“At diagnosis, he was stage 4, so it had metastasized to his lungs and we believe his lymph nodes,” she said. “We can’t stand to think of other families and kids who have to go through what we went through."
That’s why this mom will be at the Indiana Statehouse Feb. 15, pushing for lawmakers on the House’s Public Health Committee to hear House Bill 1314. That bill would give $2 million in state money to fund pediatric cancer research in Indiana.
Right now, all 50 states give money for adult cancer research, but only five states fund research for childhood cancer – Indiana isn’t one of them.
“In the past 20 years, there have been over 200 new drugs for adult cancer,” Garvey said. “Do you know how many there have been for kids? Six. Six new drugs, and the inequity, it’s just huge.”
“I think now is a good time to invest more money into these terrible diseases that are affecting kids,” said the bill’s author, Republican Rep. Ryan Lauer, from Columbus.
HB 1314 has three other co-authors, both Republicans and Democrats.
So far though, the bill hasn’t gotten a date for a hearing in the Public Health Committee where it’s assigned.
“There is a full legislative process, and sometimes, efforts take a while to get momentum and get going,” Lauer said.
But time is running out. Feb. 21 is the deadline for committees to hear bills, vote on them and send a report to House Speaker Todd Huston, who then decides which bills move to the House floor to be discussed and voted on there.
Plus, because HB 1314 involves money, the House Ways and Means Committee, which holds the purse strings on the House side, also needs to have a hearing on the bill.
“I’m hopeful we have time. I’m hopeful we can get the bill moving forward, but there’s a lot of avenues to do that, and sometimes, it can take more than a year,” Lauer said.
That’s the kind of time though, Heather Garvey said kids fighting cancer and their families don’t always have, especially considering the time it takes to research new treatments and therapies.
“Research takes years,” Garvey said. “And so, the longer we wait to get this money allocated, the more that research is waiting, that money is not there and guess what? Kids are being diagnosed every day in Indiana, and kids are dying in Indiana because we don’t have the funds to provide research for safer, less toxic treatments and more effective treatments.”
HB 1314 is just one example of a bill that has yet to get a hearing — there are hundreds. Last session, Indiana lawmakers filed 859 bills, with 177 of those ending up on Gov. Eric Holcomb’s desk.