Lawmakers at work to get anti HISA lawsuit tossed

You are familiar with the The Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA), right? The Act that Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell hustled into law during the previous Congress’s last hurrah, before adjourning?

A couple of “horsemen” groups decided to be a big fly in everybody’s ointment by filing lawsuits. HISA’s authors are trying to defeat the Texas action. Blood Horse magazine explains:

Three lawmakers who led the way in passing the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act of 2020 have filed an argument with a United States District Court requesting the court toss a lawsuit filed by a horsemen’s group contesting the constitutionality of the legislation.

In March, the National Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association and a number of state or regional HBPA groups filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Lubbock Division, claiming that the HISA legislation signed into law late last year “unconstitutionally delegates to a private entity the legislative authority to regulate plaintiffs.”

The horsemen are asking the court to find HISA unconstitutional because it violates the private non-delegation doctrine. In a May 14 filing Sen. Mitch McConnell, who was Senate Majority Leader last year when the legislation was passed; and Congressmen Paul Tonko (a Democrat from New York) and Andy Barr (Republican, Kentucky) called for the horsemen’s lawsuit to be dismissed.

Currently, HISA is scheduled to go into effect in July 2022. Earlier this month the first HISA board was named, along with two standing committees. Read full article at Bloodhorse.com »

The only positive we can see about the HISA is that it puts U.S. horse racing under one authoritative roof. However this “authority”, from the looks of it, will consist chiefly of “horsemen” and their cohorts who are the very individuals, in large part, who brought horse racing where it is today.