Rick Scott’s Drug Testing of Florida’s Welfare Recipients Ruled Unconstitutional

by Salvatore Aversa/Occupy Democrats

Shortly after Rick Scott was elected Governor of Florida, he began pursuing mandatory drug testing for those who receive welfare.  In Republican controlled Florida, the bill had no problem being passed in June of 2011.  A controversial issue, many in the ACLU and the political Left decried the new law as unconstitutional.  On Tuesday, December 31, 2013, a federal judge agreed that the drug testing law was indeed unconstitutional.

Judge Mary S. Scriven of the United States District Court in Orlando held that the testing requirement, the signature legislation of Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican who campaigned on the issue, violated the protection against unreasonable searches.

“The court finds there is no set of circumstances under which the warrantless, suspicionless [sic] drug testing at issue in this case could be constitutionally applied,” she wrote. The ruling made permanent an earlier, temporary ban by the judge.

Governor Scott stated that this was about the greater good, and saving the children.

“Any illegal drug use in a family is harmful and even abusive to a child,” he said in a statement. “We should have a zero-tolerance policy for illegal drug use in families — especially those families who struggle to make ends meet and need welfare assistance to provide for their children.”

Let’s break Governor Scott’s comments down one by one.  First and foremost, Scott is equating taking a hit of marijuana to beating a child, or worse.  While it is true there are harder drugs out there, and some such as crack cocaine are harmful to be around in any way, that distinction is not made with Governor Scott’s drug testing.

Lastly, and perhaps the most infuriating, is stating there is a zero-tolerance policy for illegal drug use.  If he wants to follow that belief, fine.  However, how can there be a “zero-tolerance” with the addition “especially those families who struggle to make ends meet and need welfare assistance to provide for their children.”

If Governor Scott believes any kind of drug use is the equivalent of child abuse, why not require drug testing of each and every individual, regardless of income.  No, this is about a deep seeded hatred for the poor.

The largest beneficiaries of welfare programs are children.  Reagan’s attempted to paint a picture of a “welfare queen” as a woman “on the South side of Chicago” that, “has 80 names, 30 addresses, 12 Social Security cards and is collecting veteran’s benefits on four nonexisting deceased husbands. And she is collecting Social Security on her cards. She’s got Medicaid, getting food stamps, and she is collecting welfare under each of her names. Her tax-free cash income is over $150,000.”

From that day forward, it was a free-for-all against the poor.  Governor Scott is just carrying the flag for the Republican Party.  This may be a step backwards for the Party, but they will regroup and attack it from a different angle.  Already, one Conservative group is planning their next offense.

Tarren Bragdon, chief executive of the Foundation for Government Accountability, a conservative group in Naples, Fla., that focuses on health care and welfare policy, said the judge’s decision would most likely result in states around the country adjusting their laws so they could meet constitutional muster.

“I think what we are seeing is Florida pursuing a strategy of protecting kids by testing all applicants,” Mr. Bragdon said. “You’re going to see a shift in strategy of how to best protect kids in a constitutional way.”

For example, some states are now screening applicants and require drug tests only of those who appear to be drug users. “The decision is not that you can’t drug test applicants,” Mr. Bragdon said. “It’s that you can’t blanket drug test all of them.”

Again, it is about protecting children.  Cowards seem to hide behind children to protect their true intentions.  If this is about doing what is best for children, why are they trying to take food off of their tables for the mistakes of their parents?  Why did Governor Scott cut over $1.3 billion from public education in his first year and higher education by $300 million in his second year?

And then there is this little thorn in the side that Governor Scott would rather you forget.  In the time period that the drug testing of welfare recipients occurred, 4086 were tested.  The net revealed only 108 people, or 2.6%, turned up positive for drugs.

When somebody tests positive, they lose their benefits immediately.  They must also pay for the cost of the drug test.  However, for those who are clean, taxpayers must pick up the tab.  Not only does this use more funds that what is being saved, you must also follow the money.  If you thought Governor Scott did not want you to pay attention to the previous numbers, consider this.

If you have a $62 million investment, representing the biggest single chunk of your $218 million in wealth, and you put it in a trust under your wife’s name, does that mean you’re no longer involved in the company?

Florida Gov. Rick Scott says it does.

Scott has aggressively pursued policies like testing state workers and welfare recipients for drugs, switching Medicaid patients to private HMOs and shrinking public health clinics. All these changes could benefit that $62 million investment, but Scott sees no legal conflict between his public role and private investments.

And, experts say, under Florida law he is correct.

So, Scott is able to look like a Republican hero by attacking the poor, while simultaneously pocketing over $60 million—and it is all legal.

The federal judge that struck down the decision made the right call.  With no suspicion or grounds for a drug test, and no warrant, the Government has no right to violate your body in such a way.  You would expect Republicans to oppose such a violation of civil right, but instead they laud it.  It is a strange hypocrisy that likely will find it’s way to the Supreme Court.

Video

The Young Turks discuss the failure of Florida’s welfare drug test program.

Florida welfare drug testing program struck down by federal appeals court

By David Ferguson/Raw Story

Republican-led efforts to drug test all recipients of public assistance were dealt a possible death blow Tuesday by a federal appeals court when the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down Florida’s controversial 2011 law requiring all welfare recipients and applicants to undergo drug testing. According to the Colorlines blog, the court’s decision also undermines a nearly identical law proposed by Georgia’s Gov. Nathan Deal (R).

The 11th Circuit Court voted unanimously to uphold the 2011 decision by an Orlando, FL court that the tests violate the Fourth Amendment’s protections against unreasonable search and seizures.

Republicans across the country have sponsored these types of bills in state legislatures, purportedly to protect children from being raised by drug-addicted parents and to stem the tide of drug use among the poor and unemployed. Aside from the testing being unconstitutional, however, that rising tide of poor and unemployed people using drugs has turned out not to exist.

During its brief life as an actively enforced law, less than 2 percent of the people who took the tests failed them. Rather than saving Florida money from its public assistance coffers, the 40 drug tests that were administered ended up costing the state $1,140. Two tests came up positive and one of those results was reversed on appeal, saving the state a total of approximately $120 for that month.

Georgia has waited for the 11th Circuit Court’s decision before implementing Gov. Deal’s program. The court has jurisdiction over Florida, Georgia and Alabama. Critics of the drug testing laws say that the court has sent a signal that Georgia’s law would not survive a court challenge.

Gerry Weber, an attorney at the Southern Center for Human Rights, a group that planned to fight the Georgia law in court, said, “We are grateful to the Court for their ruling today that essentially renders Georgia’s law dead in the water.”

Randall Berg of the Florida Justice Institute and co-counsel with the ACLU said in a statement, ”The Court today affirmed that the Fourth Amendment protects everyone, including those who need temporary assistance from the government. Requiring suspicionless drug testing of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) recipients is a slippery slope toward requiring drug testing for the receipt of any kind of government benefit, including social security, farm subsidies, and student scholarships. The line must be drawn, and the 11th Circuit did so today.”

Iowa Republican State Senator Proposes Drug Testing Child Support Recipients

By Pat Garofalo/Think Progress

A favorite Republican pastime recently has been to demonize the unemployed by proposing that they submitto drug tests before collecting their unemployment insurance. Both at the federal and state level, Republicans have pushed for such a policy, even though, as it turns out, such requirements save barely any moneyand only prove that those on unemployment insuranceare less likely than the public at large to be using drugs.

One Iowa Republican this week decided that such measures are not enough. During debate over Iowa’s budget, state Sen. Mark Chelgren (R) proposed that people who receive child support payments also be forced to submit to drug tests on the whims of the person making the payments:

The proposal came from Sen. Mark Chelgren, R-Ottumwa who said he was pushing the idea on behalf of an unidentified constituent who believed his ex was using child support money for illegal drugs.

A person paying child support under Chelgren’s proposal could require the recipient to a drug test every six months as long as they pay the costs.

“We shouldn’t be ducking our head and running away every time there’s a difficult issue coming up,” Chelgren said. However, following open laughter in the Iowa Senate chamber, Chelgren withdrew his amendment.

The Iowa Senate’s next task will be debating yet another Chelgren amendment. This one goes back to the standard Republican aim of forcing those collecting from state welfare programs to undergo drug tests. In Indiana, just 1 percent of those tested before collecting unemployment insurance or entering the state’s job training program during the final six months of 2011 failed their drug tests.

Romney Thinks Mandatory Drug Testing For Welfare Recipients Is ‘An Excellent Idea’

By Adam Peck/Think Progress

Georgia’s controversial plan to mandate drug testing for all welfare recipients and other beneficiaries of government assistance got a big endorsement on Friday from Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney.

On a local NBC affiliate in Georgia, Romney said that he supported the measure:

Jeff Hullinger: [Lawmakers] have bantered about the proposition that welfare recipients should be drug tested. How do you feel about that?

Mitt Romney: Well my own view is, it’s a great idea. People who are receiving welfare benefits, government benefits, we should make sure they’re not using those benefits to pay for drugs. I think it’s an excellent idea.

Watch it:

Romney’s support for blindly drug-testing welfare recipients dates back at least two decades,to his failed 1994 campaign for the US Senate. Civil rights advocates, meanwhile, have been quick to challenge the constitutionality of drug testing bills that were passed last year, and courts blocked similar bills from being implemented in Florida and Michigan.

Rather than saving states money or ensuring taxpayer dollars aren’t used to purchase drugs, mandatory testing laws have succeeded only in proving that welfare recipients are actually less likely to use drugs than the public at large, and implementing laws requiring drug testing iscosting states like Florida money they don’t have.

The ACLU of Florida has estimated that the state saved just over $40,000 between July and October by denying residents welfare support based on their failure to pass a drug test, while it spent more than $245,000 in reimbursements for the cost of the exam in the same time period.

Republican Sponsor Of Bill To Require Drug Testing For Georgia Welfare Recipients Arrested For DUI

By Judd Legum/Think Progress

A Georgia Republican who wants all welfare reciepients subject to drug tests failed one himself after he ran a red light on Friday morning. The Atlanta Journal Constiution has the story on State Rep. Kip Smith (R):

Smith, whose given name is John Andrew Smith, first told the officer he had not consumed any alcoholic beverages.

“I asked him again, and he stated he had consumed a single beer at Hal’s. I noticed also that Mr. Smith’s eyes were watery, and I asked him to exit the vehicle, which he did,” Kramer said in the report.

Smith told the officer he’d had the beer 45 minutes earlier, and the officer asked him to blow into a hand-held “intoximeter”. The officer said the lawmaker refused, stating he would prefer to go to a clinic or the hospital to get tested.

The officer said Smith finally agreed to blow into the device. The report stated that Smith blew a .091., which is above the legal limit of .08.

Smith is a sponsor of Georgia House Bill 464, which would “require random drug testing” for citizens on public assistance. In response to Smith’s legislation, State Rep. Scott Holcomb introduced a bill last month that would require all state lawmakers to be subject to random drug testing.

Random drug tests for recipients of public assistance are very likely to be found unconsitutional.

Perry Joins Gingrich In Desire To Drug-Test Federal Aid Recipients: ‘I Don’t Have A Problem In The World With That’

By Pat Garofalo/Think Progress

Last month, 2012 GOP presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich called for drug-testing recipients of federal aid. “Unemployment compensation, food stamps, you name it,” he said.

And Gingrich now has a kindred spirit in the GOP race when it comes to drug-testing those who need to access federal programs and the social safety net — Texas Gov. Rick Perry:

I don’t have a problem with before you get any dollars from the federal government that you’re drug tested,” Perry said in response to a man who suggested the idea in a question to him at a meet-and-greet in Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, that drew over 80 people. Perry pointed out that as a pilot in the Air Force, he himself had been drug tested. “I don’t have a problem in the world with that,” he said.

As ThinkProgress’ Justice Ian Millhiser has noted, this sort of policy “would likely run headlong into the Constitution,” as it constitutes a “suspicion-less search,” nevermind the fact that drug testing requirements cost more money than they save and welfare recipients actually use drugs less than other groups. Even 2012 GOP candidate Rick Santorum, a big fan of rabid right-wing causes, wouldn’t endorse federal drug-testing for benefits.

Republicans in several states, however, have embraced testing those who need benefits, as have House Republicans at the federal level. In Georgia, one Democratic lawmaker responded to his Republican colleagues’ desire to test beneficiaries by introducing a bill to drug-test lawmakers.

Michigan lawmaker proposes drug testing welfare recipients

By Eric W. Dolan/Raw Story

Michigan state Rep. Jeff Farrington (R) has introduced legislation to the state legislature that would require low-income families with children and pregnant women to pass a drug test before receiving temporary government assistance.

The legislation requires applicants to the state’s Family Independence Program to pay for the drug test, even if the test fails to uncover drug use.

The program helps impoverished families pay for living expenses, including rent, heat, utilities and personal care items.

Florida and Missouri passed laws this year that require all applicants to the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) welfare program to undergo a drug test.

Michigan previously tried to implement a welfare drug testing law, but it was struck down as unconstitutional by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in 2003.

U.S. District Court Judge Victoria Roberts held that testing welfare recipients “could be used for testing the parents of all children who received Medicaid, State Emergency Relief, educational grants or loans, public education or any other benefit from that State.”

Newt Gingrich’s Latest Assault On The Constitution: Drug Test Americans Before They Get ‘Any Kind Of Federal Aid’

By Tanya Somanader

Across the country, Republican governors are pushing policies that mandate drug-testing for all welfare recipients and marginalize low-income Americans in the process. Now, the latest GOP presidential frontrunner Newt Gingrich is trying that idea on the national stage. When asked by Yahoo News’ Chris Moody for his thoughts on how to reform the U.S.’s failed war on drugs, Gingrich declared that “we need to consider taking more explicit steps to make it expensive to be a drug user.” His first and foremost step? Drug test Americans “before you get any kind of federal aid“:

[MOODY:] Speaking of Ron Paul, at the last debate, he said that the war on drugs has been an utter failure. We’ve spent billions of dollars since President Nixon and we still have rising levels of drug use. Should we continue down the same path given the amount of money we’ve spent? How can we reform our approach?

[GINGRICH:] I think that we need to consider taking more explicit steps to make it expensive to be a drug user. It could be through testing before you get any kind of federal aid. Unemployment compensation, food stamps, you name it.

It has always struck me that if you’re serious about trying to stop drug use, then you need to find a way to have a fairly easy approach to it and you need to find a way to be pretty aggressive about insisting–I don’t think actually locking up users is a very good thing. I think finding ways to sanction them and to give them medical help and to get them to detox is a more logical long-term policy.

Gingrich’s first step would likely run headlong into the Constitution. As UCLA Professor Adam Winkler noted, random drug testing is a “suspicion-less search” and “the Supreme Court has upheld the ability of government to mandate random drug tests in a few limited circumstances,” most often in “high-risk public safety environments.” In fact, courts have struck down such policies again and again.

The fact that Gingrich’s first thought regarding drug users points to federal aid recipients should not be surprising given his low opinion of Americans who are struggling to make ends meet. He once insisted that an unemployed mechanic receiving jobless benefits was made lazy by that “welfare.” Nearly one-third of America’s 14 million unemployed have been unable to find work for a year or more. And yet, to Gingrich, “it is fundamentally wrong” to give these people jobless aid “for doing nothing.” Unless, of course, we drug test them first.

Florida’s welfare drug testing costs more than it saves

By David Edwards/Raw Story

Republican Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s plan to test welfare recipients for drugs is costing the state money, despite his claims that the program would actually save tax dollars.

A WFTV investigation found that out of the 40 recipients tested by Department of Central Florida’s (DCF) region, only two resulted in positive results. And one of those tests is being appealed.

Under the rules of the program, the state must reimburse recipients who receive negative test results. The state paid about $1,140 for the 38 negative tests, while saving less than $240 a month by denying benefits over the two positive tests.

“We have a diminishing amount of returns for our tax dollars,” the ACLU’s Derek Brett told WFTV. “Do we want our governor throwing our precious tax dollars into a program that has already been proven not to work?”

The cost to taxpayers could end up being significantly higher because the state expects to have to defend the law in court.

Watch this video from WFTV, broadcast Aug. 18, 2011.