Andrew Cohen: Waiting on HISA rulings; USTA not suspending

The following is the latest “Keeping Pace” weekly column at the Paulick Report by harness racing owner and breeder Andrew Cohen.

It’s been more than four months since a federal appeals court heard oral argument in a case challenging the constitutionality of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA).

The world of horse racing is waiting on vital decisions from two federal appeals courts. We are waiting to get a ruling from the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on a challenge to the constitutionality of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act. The judges there heard oral argument in the case in October. There should be a ruling soon. In the meantime, we also are waiting to see whether the U.S. Supreme Court accepts for review the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ ruling that upheld the constitutionality of the law last year. I think the justices are going to wait until they see what the Fifth Circuit does. Which means we are all on hold.

But lawyers who have clients with an interest in the outcome of the cases aren’t resting. Some of them are filing what are called amicus briefs, or “friend-of-the-court” briefs, offering the justices their spins on HISA’s faults. You can find here the list of amicus briefs posted by our friends at Scotusblog. For example, lawyers for the Standardbred Owners Association of New York filed such a brief even though harness racing is not (yet) covered by HISA. New York horsemen should ask their SBOA representatives how much union money has been spent paying lawyers to argue that a law that does not apply to them is unconstitutional.

I am sure there are U.S. Supreme Court clerks who will read the SBOA of New York’s amicus brief when the time comes for the justices to consider whether they will take the case or not. The filing repeats many of the same bad arguments about HISA that one conservative federal judge after another has already rejected. Perhaps my favorite of these dubious takes is the one that contends that HISA is unconstitutional because it forces state racing commissions to … do what state racing commissions have always done: collect fees that pay for the costs of policing the sport. Just imagine the arguments had HISA included in a federal funding provision!

To read the rest of the article, click here.

by Andrew Cohen, republished from the Paulick Report