Oklahoma, West Virginia challenge legality of Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority

The states of Oklahoma and West Virginia, and their respective racing commissions and several other racing-related entities, have filed a lawsuit challenging the legality of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority, the structure created by a law passed late last year to former a national regulatory body for racing.

The lawsut, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky on Monday, is substantially similar to a suit filed on behalf of the National Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association and many of its affiliates in March. It argues that the creation of the oversight board violates several doctrines of the U.S. Constitution while seeking a judgment that invalidates the oversight agency.

The defendants in the suit include HISA and two of the seven appointees to a nominating committee that are expected to name board members of the agency soon. Other defendants include the Federal Trade Commission, which was named as the oversight agency for HISA in the legislation passed last year.

In addition to Oklahoma and West Virginia, the United States Trotting Association, the Oklahoma Quarter Horse Racing Association, and the owner of three tracks in Oklahoma joined the suit. Associations representing Standardbred and Quarter Horse constituents have complained that the law was passed without broad support from their memberships, and they have argued that their breeds deserve separate rules governing medication use.

The HISA legislation created a private, non-profit company that will be overseen by the Federal Trade Commission. It has the power to raise funds for its operations by authorizing assessments on racing participants, and the legislation empowers the authority to draft and promulgate rules pertaining to medication and drug use, testing, and safety measures at racetracks.

The suit differs from the challenge filed by the horsemen’s groups by arguing that the states and their racing commissions will “have no appeal or allowable challenges of what the Authority ultimately approves as its budget," and that the board would “force” the states to “spend time and resources to help the Authority carry out a federal regulatory program.”

Supporters of the legislation, which included The Jockey Club, have stated in the past that they hired experts in constitutional law to review the bill, in anticipation that opponents of the legislation would attempt to mount constitutional challenges if the bill were passed.