OPPOSING THE UNCONSTITUTIONAL HORSERACING INTEGRITY AND SAFETY AUTHORITY: Congressman, Lance Gooden, STANDS UP FOR HORSE RACING!

“Madam President,
in the early hours of Tuesday morning,
we were given the text to the omnibus
appropriations bill. With the end of the
year fast approaching, everyone is trying to get this bill signed into law
quickly. That is true even if it has not
been fully reviewed and every consequence thought out.
We saw this 2 years ago, when the
omnibus was included with COVID-relief funding, within the 2020 omnibus
was the Horseracing Integrity and
Safety Act.
Prior to this 2020 act becoming law,
with no process and no opportunity to
debate the merits of the act, horseracing was regulated by States, and
Congress had no role on how the industry was regulated.
What this 2020 bill did was impose a
one-size-fits-all Federal regulatory approach on all States, from Iowa to Kentucky, to West Virginia, to New York.
This is a bill that had never gone
through the committee process, but it
managed to end up in the omnibus.
As a result of this hasty lawmaking,
last month, we saw the Fifth Circuit
Court of Appeals strike down the law
on the grounds that the act is unconstitutional. Regular order in the Senate, especially through committee
process, would have prevented this unconstitutional language.
This did not come as a surprise. It
was clear that the private nonprofit
Horseracing Authority created in the
2020 omni wielded nearly unlimited
Federal rulemaking authority and answered to no one, not even the President of the United States.
The court ruled that the power of the
Federal Government can be wielded
only by the Federal Government, not
private entities like the ‘‘Authority.’’
For months I have worked with
horsemen in Iowa and my colleagues in
the Senate to address the obvious failures with implementation of this law
since it went into effect earlier this
year.
I specifically asked the FTC about
the extent of its oversight of the FTC,
a key factor for the Fifth Circuit’s ruling.
The FTC response was simple. It said
it did not have any oversight over the
‘‘Authority.’’ This is clearly unconstitutional and is inconsistent with conservative principles of small government and reigning in the Federal bureaucracy.
Now that the courts have found HISA
unconstitutional, Congress should
work a fix through the regular committee process to avoid the pitfalls of
the previous legislation.
But that is not what is happening
today. In the 2022 omni once again, the
special interests that invented the unconstitutional ‘‘Authority’’ in the first
place have convinced their supporters a
quick fix is needed in this omnibus.
The same people who pushed the unconstitutional ‘‘Authority’’ through in
an end of year omnibus are once again
forcing legislation without any input
from Senators like me.
This fix to the unconstitutional Federal rulemaking power wielded by the
‘‘Authority’’ is included on page 1,930.
How many members of Congress even
know that this is included? Probably
very few.
I have since introduced an amendment that would strike this text with
Senator MANCHIN. Since then numerous
offices reached out to find out what
this is—and once they do—have expressed the same opposition to this becoming law that I have.
This is just one example of which
there are many, of legislating on an
omnibus. It lets a select few Members,
or in this case just one Member, of
leadership create new Federal regulatory frameworks for entire industries.
I support ensuring safe, humane
horseracing. But I also support small
tracks, like Prairie Meadows in Iowa,
which don’t have the billionaires backing like those in States that host Triple Crown races.
And I am not alone because most
other States have tracks like Prairie
Meadows.
Instead of governing this way, Congress should work with State racing
commissions to regulate horseracing in
a responsible way to ensure racetrack
safety and the economic viability of
small tracks across the country.
I will work with any Senator who is
willing to stand up for small tracks in
the next Congress and fix this broken
way of governing.”  

SOURCE