Judge upholds California stem cell agency

Ruling affirms constitutional legitimacy of $3 billion research institute

updated 7:13 p.m. ET April 21, 2006

SAN FRANCISCO - California’s novel, $3 billion stem cell research institute is a legitimate state agency, and two lawsuits challenging its constitutionality have no merit, a state judge ruled Friday.

The decision came a month after a four-day trial in which lawyers with connections to anti-abortion groups claimed the country’s most ambitious stem cell research agency violated California law because it wasn’t a true state agency and its managers had a host of conflicts of interest.

But Alameda County Superior Court Judge Bonnie Lewman Sabraw handed the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine an unambiguous victory, writing that the lawsuits failed to show the voter-approved law that created the agency in 2004 “is clearly, positively and unmistakably unconstitutional.”

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Lewman’s ruling becomes official in 10 days unless the losing attorneys come up with new and dramatically different arguments.

Proposition 71 was placed on the California ballot in November 2004 to counter President Bush’s stem cell research policy, which severely restricts the amount of federal funding that can be used for the work opposed by many conservative Christian groups.

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Approved by 59 percent of the state’s voters, it will fund about $300 million annually in stem cell research that the federal government won’t.

“It’s unfortunate that the plaintiffs, after losing at the polls, went to court to frustrate the voters’ will,” California Attorney General Bill Lockyer said. “The sooner this legal fight is over, the sooner California can move to where the people want it — in the forefront of stem cell research.”

The stem cell agency’s finances will remain in limbo even after Friday’s ruling. The litigation prevented the Institute for Regenerative Medicine from borrowing any of the $3 billion it is authorized to from traditional Wall Street bond buyers. That won’t change until the expected appeals of the verdict are exhausted, probably sometime next year.

Still, the agency managed to fund its first research grants earlier this month after six philanthropic organizations loaned the institute a combined $14 million, to be paid back once the Wall Street bond market is opened to the agency.

The grants, totaling $12.1 million, were awarded to 16 universities and nonprofit research institutes to set up basic stem cell research training programs.