Judge Strikes Down Florida Drug Testing Law

Alex Leary reports Gov. Rick Scott struck out in court again.

Miami judge rules that Gov. Rick Scott's drug testing for state workers is unconstitutional, violates 4th Amendment.

I challenge a reporter to ask Scott does he know what the Fourth amendment is? Does Scott even care. I will post the Fourth amendment to help our governor out.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Florida House Brings Back Drug Testing

Gov. Rick Scott and Republicans in the Florida legislature haven't learned from their defeat in court. The Florida passed passed HB 1205. The bill would make it mandatory for state workers to submit to a drug

Drug-free Workplaces: Requires drug testing to be conducted within each state agency's appropriation; authorizes agencies within state government to require employees to submit to periodic random drug testing; revises provisions relating to discharging or disciplining certain employees; authorizes agency to refer employee, at employee's expense, to employee assistance program or alcohol & drug rehabilitation program if not discharged; requires employer to transfer employee to job assignment he or she can perform safely & effectively while participating in employee assistance program or alcohol & drug rehabilitation program or place employee on leave status if such position is unavailable; authorizes employee to use accumulated leave credits before being placed on leave without pay; provides that employer remains qualified for insurer rate plan that discounts rates for workers' compensation & employer's liability insurance policies if employer maintains drug-free workplace program that is broader in scope than that provided for by standards & procedures established in act; authorizes public employer to conduct random drug tests of certain employees under specified conditions; provides requirements for public sector employer assigning public sector employee to position other than mandatory-testing position.

Effective Date: July 1, 2012

The Supreme Court ruled, in Skinner v. Railway Lab. Execs Ass'n that state employees can be randonly tested, if public safety is at risk. Otherwise, it is a violation of the Fourth amendment. Florida has tried to test state workers before under Gov. Jeb Bush. Roderick Wenzel took the Department of Juvenile Justice to court. Wenzel objected to being drug-tested by the DJJ. The ACLU represented Wenzel and won. Judge Robert Hinkle found the reasoning to randomly drug test Wenzel laughable.

But as Chandler teachers, this test cannot be met by ordinary public employees , or even high public officials, who work in offices and ought to be sober, but who do not have direct contact with the drug trade, and whose impairment would not pose the kind of public safety risk that attends to operation of a train or other dangerous instrumentality.

Pressed at oral argument to explain just what a drug-using long-range planner might do with his position, the defense in the case came up short. The suggestion was made that the planner could access confidential information on juveniles, learning the identity of a drug offender, and then contact that person or his family and demand drugs, threatening adverse consequences for any failure to go along. The defense offered no evidence that in the real world any such scheme had ever been devised, let alone carried out, even once, in Florida or anywhere else. To call this theory far-fetch would be charitable.

State Rep. Joe Negron is hardly a bleeding heart liberal. Negron sees no need for HB 1205.

“I haven’t been running across drug-addled employees who haven’t been able to do their jobs,” said Sen. Joe Negron, a Stuart Republican with a libertarian streak. “I’ve heard no evidence whatsoever why we need it."

Before the unemployment compensation drug testing, signed by Scott, was blocked by the courts, only 2 percent of people applying for unemployment tested positive. The drug testing was actually increasing expenses for the state. The state had to payback unemployment recipients that paid to be tested. Scott never got the magical savings he promised. There really is no evidence that state-wide drug testing is needed.

Rick Scott Meets The Daily Show

This is awesome. The Daily Show correspondent Aasif Mandvi asked Gov. Rick Scott to pee in a cup during a press conference. Scott signed legislation requiring drug tests for unemployment compensation, welfare recipients and state employees.

The reporter, Aasif Mandvi, stood up in the middle of the governor’s questioning, and asked Scott if he would be willing to take the test since he too was using hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars” in carrying out his job.

“I’ve done it hundreds of times,” the governor responded.

Encouraged by the answer, Mandvi then tried to get other reporters to pass a pee-cup up to the governor, drawing a few complaints from executive staff.

“I hate to keep harping on this, but would you pee into the cup?” he asked repeatedly.

Scott then returned to questions from other reporters, and never took the cup.

It is not a surprise that Scott isn't willing to live by the standard he sets for others. To be fair, Scott was asked to pee in a room a media people.

The testing of people applying for unemployment compensation has been temporarily blocked by Judge Mary Scriven. The drug testing of state employees has been suspended after the ACLU issued a legal challenge. Drug testing people without probable cause has been shot down by the court. In 2008, the Washington Supreme Court ruled that Wahkiakum School District could not require all students participating in extracurricular athletic activities to take a drug test. The Supreme Court decision Chandler v. Miller found that candidate for state Georgia state office cannot be required to take a drug test. The Supreme Court found that testing candidates violated their Fourth amendment rights. Scott should be happy that the Supreme Court ruled he isn't required to pee in a cup.

Update: Here is video of the press conference.

Rachel Maddow On Rick Scott's Intrusive Government

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Rachel Maddow points out that Gov. Rick Scott's idea of less government is forcing women seeking abortions to pay for an ultrasound.

Maddow shows video of an interview of Scott stating that poor people do more drugs than the rest of Florida's population. Maddow cited data of only 2 percent of people seeking unemployment compensation testing positive for drugs. The number of Floridians using drugs is over 8 percent. The testing is increasing government expenses from having to reimburse people that tested negative.

The Department of Children and Families’ central region has tested 40 applicants since the law went into effect six weeks ago, and of those 40 applicants, 38 tested negative for drugs. The cost to the state of Florida to reimburse those 38 individuals who tested negative was at least $1,140 over the course of six weeks. Meanwhile, denying benefits to the two applicants who tested positive will save Florida less than $240 a month.

So much for Scott's so-called fiscal conservatism. I agree with Maddow. Scott is doing this because he has a belief that poor people are immoral.

Update Six days before the drug testing bill was signed into law, Scott's spokeman Lane Wright told Talking Points Memo that they didn't know what the cost of the program would be.

"We don't have a dollar cost estimate at this time," he said. "Because of volume, the state is hoping to negotiate very competitive rates."

So much for fiscal conservatism.

ACLU v. Rick Scott on Drug-Testing

Getting sued has a way of changing a person's disposition. Rick Scott is no stranger to getting sued. As governor, Scott was hell bent on drug-testing state employees. After the ACLU filed suit Scott slammed on the brakes.

The Republican governor quietly signed the suspension memo on June 10 but it received little public notice until the American Civil Liberties Union obtained and circulated copies on Thursday.

The ACLU sued Scott last month in a federal court. It said mandating drug tests for workers who were not suspected of wrongdoing violated their constitutional protection against unreasonable searches and seizure, and robbed them of due process.

"We are pleased that this new order has delayed subjecting thousands of state employees to demeaning, invasive and illegal tests of their bodily fluids," Randall Marshall, legal director for the ACLU of Florida, said in a statement.

"But it does not change our Constitutional challenge. Any government search without suspicion of drug use or not directly related to public safety is a violation of privacy protections and we will vigorously move ahead with our challenge."

Federal courts have ruled against wide spread drug testing of state workers. Scott is going to lose on this.

ACLU Challenges Scott's Drug-Testing Policy

The ACLU has filed suit against Florida's new law drug-testing state employees.

Governor Scott’s Executive Order directed all state agencies under the direction of the Governor to develop plans to allow drug testing existing state employees at least quarterly. The order attempts to resurrect a policy previously found unconstitutional by a federal judge in a 2004 ACLU case against the Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ). That suit found the random drug testing of state employees without suspicion was unconstitutional. The plaintiff was awarded a settlement t of $150,000.

“I’m not sure if Governor Scott does not know that the policy he ordered has already been declared unconstitutional or if he just doesn’t care,” said Howard Simon, Executive Director of the ACLU of Florida. “But I do know that the state of Florida cannot force people to surrender their constitutional rights in order to work for the state.”

Existing law and court rulings allow for drug testing of public employees in positions that are safety-sensitive such as police who are required to carry a weapon as part of the job or those in positions while require operating dangerous machinery. But courts have routinely found that testing of all employees without regard for safety-sensitive positions or suspicion violates the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable government searches.

The Supreme Court ruled in Skinner v. Railway Lab. Execs. Ass'n that federal rail road employees could be randomly drug-tested. The court ruled that public safety outweighed the privacy matters of the employees. What Scott's executive order is doing is drug-testing all state employees. Scott is assuming all state employees are doing drugs. Previous legal rulings deemed there must be probable cause before drug-testing a state employee. Translation: the employee has to show signs he is doing drugs.

The ACLU has not said if they will file suit against people receiving unemployment being required to take a drug test.

Compassionate Conservatism: Making the Unemployed Pay to Be Drug Tested

Draconian potential law of the day: Florida Sen. Mike Bennett has the bizarre idea to randomly drug test people collecting unemployment. SB 2062 will create a "Drug Deterrence Program within the Agency for Workforce Innovation." My question is who is going to pay for the drug testing. Many companies don't drug test because it's expensive. People on probation pay for their drug testing through money they pay to county correctional systems. An estimated 800,000 people are unemployed. The cost of drug testing will be deducted from unemployment checks. Can you feel the compassioniate conservatism?

The bill requred 10 percent of unemployment recipients be drug tested. That translates into 80,000 people. No money will be appropriated for drug rehabilitation to people that fail drug testing. Bennett isn't interested in rehabilitation.

Text of SB 2062.

(a) The Agency for Workforce Innovation shall implement aprogram no later than October 1, 2009, of drug testing, on a random basis:
1. Ten percent of individuals who make a claim for benefits; and
2. Ten percent of individuals who are receiving benefits.
(b) In creating and implementing the program, the agency shall:
1. Develop a procedure for random selection of individuals for testing and shall ensure that the testing occurs on a statewide basis and reasonably correlates to the population distribution in the state;
2. Make a determination of eligibility under s.443.101(1)(d) before an applicant is selected for drug testing;
3. Provide notice of the potential for drug testing to individuals claiming and receiving benefits; and
4. Require an individual to be tested to sign an acknowledgement that he or she has received notice of the agency's drug testing policy and that he or she has a right to refuse to take the drug test;
(5) TESTING; USE OF RESULTS.—
(a) An individual is disqualified from receiving or continuing to receive benefits upon:
1. Refusing to submit to testing under this section; or
2. Upon testing positive for drugs as a result of a test under this section.
(b) If the individual fails the drug test required under this section, the individual is not entitled to unemployment benefits for up to 52 weeks, under rules adopted by the agency, and until he or she has earned income of at least 17 times his or her weekly benefit amount.
(c) The agency shall provide any individual who tests positive with information on drug treatment programs that may be available in the area in which he or she resides; however, the agency or the state is not responsible for providing or paying for drug treatment as part of the testing conducted under this section.

"I guarantee people are supporting their drug habits on your unemployment," Bennett told the Brandon Herald. Any 10 percent of the American population will produce people using drugs. Bennett is testing 80,000 people. No one will be surprised to find drug users. Bennett takes the classic conservative view that poverty and unemployment are character flaws. Bennett views these unemployment recipients as lazy and worthy of punishment. Nevermind that his party's economic ignorance helped create Florida's flawed tax system and a busted real estate market. It never occurred to Bennett that his economics opportunities would be different if he was born a black child in Sudan.

“People are hurting and people are losing their jobs, and in the midst of that situation, this would treat everyone facing a job crisis and seeking unemployment compensation as a potential drug abuser,” said Courtenay Strickland, ACLU director of public policy.

Bennett responds to this sort of criticism that (in his word) he is "picking on the junkies." Bennett's sensitivity is underwhelming.