We often look to the past to help us understand the present and make well-reasoned decisions that affect the future. Our courts follow a similar path when they look to a statute’s legislative history for evidence of intent.

Courts are highly selective in what they will consider when interpreting the meaning of specific legislative language. Committee reports, hearings, floor debate, and other documents that record legislative exchanges on the merits of a pending bill are valued most. State courts may take a broader view of authoritative legislative documentation based on the resources produced during their respective legislative processes.

For example, neither chamber of the Michigan Legislature routinely records committee hearings or floor debate. Analyses are generated for most bills, but their interpretive value is diminished because they do not represent the words of the legislators themselves.¹ Recently, however, the Michigan Supreme Court employed corpus linguistics to aid in the definition of statutory terms.²

A lot of information is generated on bills introduced in a legislative session. While some of it may not rise to the level of authoritativeness required by courts for legislative history, it still provides a record useful to constituents in understanding what ultimately happened to a particular bill during the legislative process.

“IN A MANNER THAT CAUSES PAIN OR DISTRESS”

Michigan House Bill 4849 and its companion from the 2023-24 legislative term, Senate Bill 1019, instantiate the importance of legal history to our overall understanding of enacted or unenacted legislation. These bills would have, in part, amended the Public Health Code to prohibit public bodies³ from using dogs in research experiments that would cause “pain or distress” to the animal. Experiments that may cause “death, injury, fear, or trauma” or those involving invasive procedures such as “penetrating the body, cutting body parts, performing surgery or surgical procedures, implanting a medical device, or administering an experimental agent or drug” would be outlawed.⁴

Both bills were named Queenie’s Law after a female Dalmatian mix who had been subjected to six months of painful heart failure experiments at Wayne State University which culminated in her death in 2010.⁵ The bill’s sponsors sought an end to decades of deadly animal experimentation that faced growing opposition in the medical community⁶ and the public at large.

Rep. Matt Koleszar and 10 colleagues⁷ sponsored HB 4849, which was introduced on June 27, 2023. As introduced, the bill applied to research facilities registered with or licensed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture that used or intended to use dogs or cats for experimental purposes. HB 4849 was reported out of the Committee on Agriculture on Nov. 13, 2023, with the recommendation that substitute bill H-1 be adopted and passed.⁸ The substitute bill would have limited the scope of the legislation to dogs only and applied to public bodies created by the state rather than research facilities generally.⁹

On Jan. 24, 2024, the Committee on Agriculture held a hearing on HB 4849 at which Rep. Koleszar explained the proposed substitute bill.¹⁰ Despite a brief two-day notice, interested parties were prepared for the hearing. Eight individuals spoke, submitted written statements, or appeared in support of the bill, and 28 Michigan physicians and scientists advocated for the bill in a single letter of support. Representatives of national and statewide animal welfare organizations also participated in the hearing. The proponents argued that the experiments addressed by the legislation were inhumane, unproductive, unnecessary, and unethical given available research alternatives.

Seven individuals, most of whom represented private industry, voiced their opposition to the measure. They emphasized the necessity and productivity of the experiments and argued that research

facilities exceed government requirements to ensure the welfare of research animals. Some also stressed the crucial role of animal experimentation in biotechnological innovation and economic growth.

After the hearing, there was silence. Neither HB 4849 nor its recommended substitute were considered by the House.

SB 1019 was introduced on Sept. 26, 2024, just three months before the legislative term ended. The bill incorporated the language recommended by the House Committee on Agriculture in H-1. After a second reading, SB 1019 was referred to the Senate Committee on Regulatory Affairs. There was no further action on the bill.

EARLIER LEGISLATIVE EFFORTS

The aforementioned bills were just the latest to address the issues encompassed by Queenie’s Law. A glance at the legal history shows similar bills were introduced years earlier.

During the 2019-20 legislative session, HB 5090 and SB 971 were introduced; the measures aimed to prohibit affiliates of public bodies in Michigan from carrying out experimentation on dogs “in a manner that causes pain or distress.” These bills would have created new acts as opposed to amending sections of the Public Health Code as proposed in Queenie’s Law, but neither received floor consideration.

Again, in the 2021-22 legislative session, SB 582 proposed an act similar to SB 971 from the previous term. The last action of record for this bill was referral to the Senate Committee on Agriculture.

Also in 2022, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel issued an opinion in response to a request by Rep. Koleszar.¹¹ At question was whether the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) was obligated to develop and implement standards for the treatment of animals used in research experiments. Nessel found that the DHHS is indeed charged with this responsibility, and the department’s rules should be in line with federal standards. Only those research facilities complying with DHHS regulations would be permitted to register and continue animal experimentation operations.

NOT “JUST A BILL”¹²

Would effective DHHS regulations preclude the need for Queenie’s Law, or would rules and legislation work best together? We shall see. As Yogi Berra is believed to have said, “It ain’t over ‘til it’s over.”¹³