Florida Gov. Rick Scott (AP photo)
Florida’s new law requiring poor residents seeking state welfare assistance to submit to a drug test they pay for themselves, the first passed by a state in decades, was blocked by a judge’s ruling that could lead to the end of the controversial mandate.
Drug testing the state’s poor had been a highly publicized campaign promise of the state’s new Republican governor, Rick Scott, and rushing through a testing law was one of the top priorities in the state’s last legislative session.
Monday’s court decision is a major victory for opponents of the law and a stunning defeat for what many consider one of Gov. Scott’s most important achievements in his short time in office. Now the future of the law is in doubt amid serious questions over whether it violates the United States Constitution.
Judge Mary Scriven, an appointee of Republican President George W. Bush, ruled in an Orlando federal court that Florida’s drug testing law must be temporarily halted since there is a “good chance” that it violates the basic constitutional rights of state residents.
The order blocking the state’s drug testing program will remain in place until a more comprehensive hearing on the law will take place.
A federal judge temporarily blocked Florida’s new law that requires welfare applicants to pass a drug test before receiving benefits on Monday, saying it may violate the Constitution’s ban on unreasonable searches and seizures.
Judge Mary Scriven ruled in response to a lawsuit filed on behalf of a 35-year-old Navy veteran and single father who sought the benefits while finishing his college degree, but refused to take the test. The judge said there was a good chance plaintiff Luis Lebron would succeed in his challenge to the law based on the Fourth Amendment, which protects individuals from being unfairly searched.
The drug test can reveal a host of private medical facts about the individual, Scriven wrote, adding that she found it “troubling” that the drug tests are not kept confidential like medical records. The results can also be shared with law enforcement officers and a drug abuse hotline.
“This potential interception of positive drug tests by law enforcement implicates a ‘far more substantial’ invasion of privacy than in ordinary civil drug testing cases,” said Scriven, who was appointed by President George W. Bush.
The judge also said Florida didn’t show that the drug testing program meets criteria for exceptions to the Fourth Amendment.
Gov. Scott and political supporters of the testing law framed it as a fiscally conservative proposition that could prevent the state from “wasting” aid money on illegal drug users.
But Judge Scriven took issue with this justification, ruling that such an attitude could potentially be used to force drug tests for the beneficiaries of any government program, no matter how inconsequential, leading to blatant constitutional violations. The governor’s office says Scott “:obviously disagrees” with this interpretation of his law.
Gov. Rick Scott, who signed the measure into law on May 31, touted it as a way to ensure taxpayer money isn’t “wasted” on those who use drugs. “Hopefully more people will focus on not using illegal drugs,” he said then.
But, in her order, Scriven issued a scathing assessment of the state’s argument in favor of the drug tests, saying the state failed to prove “special needs” as to why it should conduct such searches without probable cause or reasonable suspicion, as the law requires.
“If invoking an interest in preventing public funds from potentially being used to fund drug use were the only requirement to establish a special need,” Scriven wrote, “the state could impose drug testing as an eligibility requirement for every beneficiary of every government program. Such blanket intrusions cannot be countenanced under the Fourth Amendment.”
Jackie Schutz, deputy press secretary for Gov. Scott, sent an emailed statement in response to Scriven’s order.
“Drug testing welfare recipients is just a common-sense way to ensure that welfare dollars are used to help children and get parents back to work,” Schutz wrote. “The governor obviously disagrees with the decision, and he will evaluate his options regarding when to appeal.”
The lead plaintiff in the court fight against Florida’s drug testing mandate is Luis Lebron, a 35-year-old Navy veteran from central Florida who clearly represents the average Floridian struggling in a poor economy and seeking government assistance for his family.
Lebron and the ACLU, who is also leading the effort against the testing law, celebrated the court ruling as a “great thing” for the state.
Luis W. Lebron, a 35-year-old University of Central Florida student who served in the Navy, applied with the Florida Department of Children and Families for emergency cash assistance this summer to help raise his 4-year-old son.
……………….
So far, the state has reimbursed more than 4,100 people who passed the test, to the tune of $57,920.
DCF said Lebron is eligible for the financial assistance, which would amount to about $241 a month.
But Lebron, who says he has never used illegal drugs, contends that requiring him to be tested and to pay for that testing violates his civil rights.
The American Civil Liberties Union chose Lebron as the lead plaintiff in a class-action suit, challenging the constitutionality of the drug tests.
United States District Judge Mary S. Scriven blocked the state from requiring Lebron to submit to a “suspicionless” drug test as a condition for receiving welfare benefits until the case is finally resolved.
“I’m very happy that the judge protected my rights and privacy,” Lebron said Monday. “I was anticipating a favorable decision. I just felt deep down inside that this was the right thing to do.”
“This is a great thing for Floridians,” he said.
Scriven noted in her 37-page ruling that there is a “substantial likelihood” that the challenge of the constitutionality of the new state law will succeed.
“I’m delighted for our client and delighted to have confirmation that all of us remain protected from unreasonable, suspicionless government searches and seizures,” ACLU’s lead attorney, Maria Kayanan,said in a prepared statement.
While the state spends an untold amount of public money fighting to preserve Gov. Scott’s drug testing law in court, both the effectiveness and need of the mandate are being questioned in the several months since it was implemented.
The first wave of data coming from the state’s first batch of testing results shows that only 2 percent of welfare applicants tested positive for illegal substances, well below the national average of drug use and significantly less than the higher state average.
In addition, the provision in the law forcing the state to repay the cost of the tests for those applicants that do not test positive is costing the state up to $43,000 every month. The governor and other proponents of the law said that state would save money with a drug testing program.
all the money it was supposed to save taxpayers and in the end we still have to pay for this now. what an idiot. how did he even get elected. anything scott does is shady and for some hidden reason. it amazes me how the tea bag republicans talk about less government in our lives but all we see is more invasive goverment programs into our personal lives. nice double talk tea bagger
The only beneficiaries of such laws are those who do the testing on the public dime. They are a public expense in search of a significant problem to correct.
Of course, Republicans are all about walking over dollars to get to dimes. They will spend any sum of tax dollars collected from others to insure that no one gets a nickel he hasn’t “earned”.
Next up: Testing the deceased to make CERTAIN they are not running a game on SS for the death benefit.
Great news! I was appalled at that terrible law. Drug-testing should be for corporate welfare recipients as well if we’re to be fair-and of course that would never fly!
One more way to hate on the Poor and Struggling Floridians. Glad it was proven wrong, although it still has wasted the untold thousands of dollars that it had to reimburse! Stop hating on the Poor and Struggling and give people JOBS!