unconstitutional

Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit issued an opinion that reiterated a conclusion they had reached two years prior--that even though the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA)'s rulemaking structure is constitutional, its enforcement provisions are not. It was nearly this time last year the United States Supreme Court punted the question of HISA's constitutionality back down the legal ladder, telling the Fifth, Sixth and Eighth Circuits of the U.S. Courts of Appeal to consider in their various HISA decisions a then-recent Supreme Court ruling...

The United States Supreme Court punted on Monday the constitutionality of the Horseracing and Safety Integrity Act (HISA) back down the legal ladder, requiring three different federal appeals courts to reconsider their earlier decisions on the matter in light of a fresh ruling by the highest court in the land. The Supreme Court's Friday decision in Federal Communications Commission (FCC) vs. Consumers' Research saw a 6-3 majority of justices essentially dismiss an argument that the agency delegated too much authority to a private company to administer the program. With this...

Eight individual owners, trainers and other Thoroughbred industry licensees in Oklahoma on July 24 filed what is now the sixth federal lawsuit in three years to try and get the Horseracing and Safety Integrity Act (HISA) declared unconstitutional. As in previous lawsuits that have similarly targeted the HISA Authority and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) as defendants, the Oklahoma horsemen want declaratory judgments, injunctions, and restraining orders imposed that would invalidate HISA rules and prohibit the HISA Authority, the FTC, and the Horseracing Integrity and Welfare Unit (HIWU) from enforcing the...

The July 5 opinion out of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit that declared that part of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA) is unconstitutional is generating legal filings from both sides in a related case awaiting a decision in the Eighth Circuit. Both the plaintiffs/appellants in the Eighth Circuit case (led by Bill Walmsley, the president of the Arkansas HBPA, and Jon Moss, the executive director of the Iowa HBPA) and the defendants/appellees (executives with the HISA Authority and the Federal Trade Commission [FTC]),...

A judgment Friday by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit declared that part of the Horseracing and Safety Integrity Act (HISA) is unconstitutional. Even though the three-judge panel agreed with "nearly all" of a lower court's ruling that other contested aspects of HISA's constitutionality were fixed by a Congressional amendment to the law in 2022, the panel's one unconstitutional finding has to do with the HISA Authority's broad powers to investigate and operate. The gravity of that unconstitutionality opinion could be enough to send the case...