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| Legislature approves putting cancer research proposal on ballot |
| The Austin American-Statesman, 5/25/2007 |
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Texas voters in November will consider whether to approve bonds to pay for a 10-year, $3 billion cancer research initiative that the Legislature decided Thursday to put on the ballot.
The goal: To find cures for cancer, which kills 35,000 Texans a year.
"This is truly, truly going to bring research to this state that will help us find a cure, many cures," said Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Lewisville, the Senate sponsor of the plan.
The House, which had already approved the proposal, on Thursday accepted Senate tweaks to the plan. Gov. Rick Perry's signature isn't needed to put the constitutional amendment on the ballot.
"Every person in this state has been touched by this disease in some way," said Rep. Patrick Rose, D-Dripping Springs, an author of the legislation. "I think the entire state will embrace this idea."
A related measure that would establish a cancer prevention and research institute to distribute as much as $300 million a year for 10 years through grants to public and private entities is on Perry's desk. Cancer research has been a priority for Perry this session.
The idea for a state cancer research project has been championed at the Capitol by cyclist and cancer survivor Lance Armstrong.
But the initial idea — or at least its precursor — came almost a decade ago in a duck blind, according to former state Comptroller John Sharp. He said he, former Travis County Democratic Party Chairman Ken Wendler and John Mendelsohn, president of the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, were on a hunting trip in Port Lavaca when Sharp was running for lieutenant governor in 1998. The men talked about starting a cancer research project after Sharp was in office, Sharp said.
But Sharp lost the race — to Perry — and the cancer project didn't progress.
Fast forward eight years. Last Fourth of July, Mendelsohn joined Wendler and Wendler's partner, Cathy Bonner, who served in Gov. Ann Richards' Cabinet, at a summer retreat in New York. At the time, Bonner said, Richards was being treated for esophageal cancer, and her health weighed heavily on Bonner's mind.
The group revisited the idea of a cancer research project for Texas. Later, Sharp and Bonner founded killcancer.org to push the plan. and Bonner reached out to Armstrong. "The rest," Sharp said, "is history."
Richards died in September.
On Thursday, as people pushing the cancer research proposal hugged and congratulated each other in the hallway outside the House chamber, Bonner's eyes filled with tears. "I just have to think about Ann," Bonner said. "She would love it."
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Lance Armstrong and Cathy Bonner at the legislative kick-off to pass the
cancer research initiatives.
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