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A state judge ruled on Friday that California's $3 billion stem cell research institute was a legitimate state agency and that two lawsuits challenging its constitutionality had no merit.
The decision came a month after a four-day trial in which lawyers with connections to anti-abortion groups claimed the stem cell institute violated California law because it was not a true state agency and its managers had several conflicts of interest.
But Judge Bonnie Lewman Sabraw of Alameda County Superior Court handed the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine an unambiguous victory, writing that the lawsuits failed to show that the voter-approved law that created the agency in 2004 "is clearly, positively and unmistakably unconstitutional."
The ruling becomes official in 10 days unless the lawyers representing the losing side put forth new and significantly different arguments.
Proposition 71 was placed on the California ballot in November 2004 to counter President Bush's stem cell research policy, which greatly restricts the amount of federal financing that can be used for the work, which is opposed by many conservatives.
The measure was approved by 59 percent of the state's voters, and it will finance about $300 million annually in stem cell research that the federal government will not.
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