SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – A prominent and well-respected racing-law expert predicted Monday that federal courts are ready to revisit doctrines regarding the delegation of government powers to private companies, a development that could lead to a drawn-out legal battle over a new national regulatory authority for horse racing. The expert, Bennett Liebman, a former member of the New York State Racing and Wagering Board, told attendees of the Racing and Gaming Conference on Monday that while the Supreme Court has not made a prominent ruling on delegation powers since 1936, the present make-up of the court includes several new justices who have indicated that they may want to revisit the issue. If that were the case, it would jeopardize the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority, a private horse racing regulatory body created by federal legislation passed late in 2020. “The Supreme Court is looking for an opportunity to review this issue,” Liebman said. “And if it does, we are in for a very long and difficult amount of litigation. . . . This should be a major concern for the industry and for the proponents of HISA.” Liebman’s comments came during the conference’s second session of the morning examining HISA and its legal implications – and exactly 24 hours after The Jockey Club, which played a major role in crafting the legislation creating it, used its Round Table Conference on Sunday to urge the racing industry to support the implementation of the authority. :: Bet the races with confidence on DRF Bets. You're one click away from the only top-rated betting platform fully integrated with exclusive data, analysis, and expert picks. While a wide-ranging collection of racing groups supported passage of the legislation, the bill also has been challenged by a handful of racetracks, racing commissions, horsemen’s groups, and breed organizations, on the grounds that the legislation violates several non-delegation clauses of the Constitution. Supporters of the legislation have said that it was modeled after bills allowing for self-regulation of the financial-services industry through a federally sanctioned body. Those regulatory agencies have survived challenges on constitutional grounds in the past, but Liebman warned that recent changes on the political landscape and on the makeup of the federal judiciary have made the issue ripe for review. “There is hardly a better case than this one for someone who is worried about the issue,” Liebman said. Chris Kannady, an Oklahoma state legislator and attorney who is representing the state racing commission, Oklahoma horsemen, and several state racetracks in their challenge of the federal bill, said that regulation of horse racing should remain in the hands of state racing commissions, and he said federal regulation would ignore impacts on local economies. “This is really about us, as individuals, taking care of our industry, to make sure our industry isn’t wrecked,” Kannady said. He added that he believed the costs of implementation of the authority would “decimate the industry in a lot of states.” The discussion surrounding HISA at the legal conference was markedly different in tone compared to the Round Table a day earlier, when speakers lauded the potential benefits of the authority and urged the racing industry to unite behind its implementation, while cautioning that the costs of the authority’s programs would cost more than the “industry has traditionally allocated.” In addressing the costs – which have not yet been divulged by the authority – a representative of Nebraska’s horsemen, Lynne McNally, rose from the audience to tell panelists that HISA “would put the smaller jurisdictions out of business.”  Under the bill, state racing commissions are expected to be tasked with figuring out how to raise the funds for their proportion of costs, a prospect that has worried a number of regulatory bodies that are already operating on tight budgets. Although racing commissions in Oklahoma, Louisiana, and West Virginia have joined one of the lawsuits challenging HISA, Ed Martin, executive director of the Association of Racing Commissioners International, said that his members “with very few exceptions are all on the record of wanting to cooperate” with the implementation of HISA. But he also warned that the July 1, 2022, start date for the authority would be hard to meet. “It’s far, far more complicated than anyone thought when they passed this bill,” Martin said. As the second session examining HISA wound down, attendees and panelists at the conference began debating the possible legal arguments that would counter a challenge on non-delegation doctrines.  Several supporters of the legislation attempted to sidestep those questions in order to make a case for the authority based on the alleged failure of the current state-by-state regulatory system. David O’Rourke, chief executive officer of the New York Racing Association, speaking from the audience, said that state-by-state regulation “is not serving the sport,” at a time when racing’s mission is evolving to place far more importance on the health and safety of its horses. “We’re here to protect the animal, period,” O’Rourke said. “And if we can’t do that, then we shouldn’t be in business. And it came to the point that this was the only way we could do that.” Several attendees pointed to the 2020 indictments of more than two dozen individuals connected to racing on charges related to the manufacture, distribution, and administration of illegal substances in order to argue that the sport needs far more oversight, especially when considering that the investigation was led by federal law-enforcement agencies. As the discussion continued, Liebman offered an alternative proposal, in the event that a court rules that the legislation creating HISA violated the constitution. “So maybe the answer is giving more money to federal law-enforcement agencies so they can conduct more investigations, specifically into the problem of horse doping,” Liebman said.