A bipartisan bill in the US Senate that was originally signed into law in 2018 and named after a young kid in Jefferson, just cleared one hurdle in Congress to be reauthorized.

Kevin and Avante’s Law was named after nine-year-old Kevin Curtis Wills of Jefferson who had autism and wandered away from his family and jumped into the Raccoon River in 2008 and drowned. In 2014, Avonte Oquendo died in the East River in New York City after he wandered away from school. The law allows for an alert program for individuals who go missing that have autism, Alzheimers and similar diseases, along with training and best practices for schools to prevent those kinds of individuals from wandering away and specialized training for first responders and law enforcement to track them if they do go missing.

US Senator Chuck Grassley says the law was due to sunset this year and it needed to be reauthorized. It took the Senate all but four days to unanimously pass it again. Grassley was a bit surprised how quickly the Senate acted on the reauthorization and shares his thoughts if there’s enough support in the House.

“And I assume that it’s going to have broad support in the United States House (of Representatives). But usually you get a chance to work the House before the bill even passes the Senate. But I haven’t had that opportunity because it moved so fast. So maybe a week from now I might have a better answer for you, I just don’t know now but I assume since it’s been worked very well for the five years before it sunsets and there’s a consensus that it needs to be considered. So I can say this, I hope the House passes it as soon as possible.”

Grassley was unable to provide data or statistics of how the law has worked over the past four years since it was signed into law. The reauthorization of Kevin and Avante’s Law was co-signed by Grassley, and Senators Amy Klobuchar, Thom Tills and Chuck Schumer.