Opinion ID: 795610
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Velazquez I

Text: 12 In 1997, several of the plaintiffs to this appeal, the so-called Velazquez plaintiffs, brought challenges on First Amendment grounds to the program integrity regulation and to certain of the 1996 Act's restrictions relating to a recipient's lobbying and welfare reform activities. Velazquez v. Legal Servs. Corp. (Velazquez I), 985 F.Supp. 323 (E.D.N.Y.1997). The Velazquez plaintiffs alleged the program integrity regulation failed to cure the constitutional issues raised by the district court in Hawaii because the financial and administrative costs of forming a separate affiliate organization remained an unconstitutional condition on their use of non-federal funds. See id. at 337; see also Velazquez II, 164 F.3d at 765 (Plaintiffs' ... constitutional contention is that the program integrity rules ... unreasonably burden a grantee's ability to use non-federal funds to engage in restricted activity.). The district court disagreed and the plaintiffs appealed to this Court.