Supreme Court gets HISA responses in horse-racing oversight case

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The U.S. Supreme Court docket in Oklahoma v. United States, No. 25-1325, now includes separate August 28, 2026 responses from the federal government and the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority respondents. Both filings urge the justices to prioritize related petitions from the Fifth Circuit and hold Oklahoma’s petition while those cases are considered.

The filings are requests, not a Supreme Court decision. The Court has not granted review in the Oklahoma case and has not resolved the constitutionality of HISA. Its next action could be a grant of review, a decision to hold the petition, a denial or another docket order.

The dispute centers on HISA’s enforcement power i

Oklahoma’s petition comes from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, which upheld the amended Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act after the Supreme Court sent the case back for further consideration. The central issue is whether HISA’s enforcement provisions facially violate the private-nondelegation doctrine, a constitutional principle limiting the transfer of government power to private entities.

The Fifth Circuit reached the opposite conclusion in a related case, holding HISA’s enforcement provisions facially unconstitutional. The federal respondents and HISA respondents say that conflict is best presented by the related Fifth Circuit petitions, rather than by Oklahoma’s broader petition.

A facial challenge asks whether a law is invalid across its applications, rather than only in connection with a particular sanction or enforcement action. That is different from an as-applied challenge involving a specific racing participant, investigation or penalty.

What the respondents are asking the Court to do i

The federal respondents ask the justices to grant the related Fifth Circuit petitions and hold Oklahoma’s petition pending those cases. The HISA respondents recommend the same general path. Their filing also says that, if the Court grants Oklahoma’s petition, review should be limited to the enforcement provisions.

Those recommendations come from separate respondent groups. They do not represent an order or ruling by the Supreme Court.

Why rulemaking is treated differently i

The filings distinguish HISA’s rulemaking powers from its enforcement powers. The respondents say the courts of appeals are aligned in upholding the amended rulemaking structure, so there is no comparable circuit split on that question.

Under the law, HISA is a private, independent, self-regulatory nonprofit corporation operating under Federal Trade Commission oversight. It proposes rules, while the FTC must approve rules before they take effect. HISA can investigate alleged violations, conduct disciplinary proceedings and impose civil sanctions, but its disciplinary decisions are subject to de novo review by an FTC administrative law judge and then by the FTC.

Congress amended HISA in December 2022 to give the FTC authority to “abrogate, add to, and modify” HISA rules. The legal dispute is whether that public supervision is sufficient when a private authority carries out enforcement functions under the federal racing statute.

What happens next i

Nothing changes immediately for most racing participants because the Supreme Court has not acted on the new filings. The next meaningful development will be a docket decision on the related Fifth Circuit petitions, Oklahoma’s petition or both.

If the justices grant review, the case could determine whether a private authority may investigate and pursue racing penalties under federal supervision. That would affect the structure of horse-racing oversight and could have broader implications for regulatory systems that combine private-sector expertise with review by a public agency.

For now, the August 28 filings clarify the federal government’s and HISA respondents’ preferred route through the litigation while leaving the constitutional dispute unresolved.

Sources

• U.S. Supreme Court docket No. 25-1325, Oklahoma v. United States
• Thoroughbred Daily News: Authority Urges Focus on Fifth Circuit HISA Enforcement Question

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