Two Louisiana gubernatorial candidates want to throw your money into a dumpster fire. When our state has a budget deficit, Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne, R-La., and U. S. Sen. David Vitter, R-La., want to waste public money and resources drug testing welfare recipients.
States began to drug test welfare recipients to raise money. Arizona, Kansas, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Utah spent thousands each year on drug tests hoping to kick any recipients who test positive off the welfare rolls.
Now, Dardenne and Vitter propose drug testing welfare
recipients, or those who receive support from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program. Vitter introduced the Drug Free Families Act in Congress this year, and Dardenne released an ad claiming he would drug test welfare recipients if elected governor.
According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, TANF funds services like income assistance, child care, education and job training, transportation, aid to at-risk children and other services for low-income families.
Drug testing TANF recipients is as good of an investment as Gov. Bobby Jindal’s presidential campaign.
In 2011, Missouri enacted a law requiring TANF applicants to be screened and tested for drugs. ThinkProgress reported, “In 2014, 446 of the state’s 38,970 applicants were tested. Just 48 tested
positive.” In Florida, the law was enforced for four months . During that time only 108 out of 4,086 welfare applicants tested positive for drugs.
It’s not only wasteful, but drug testing welfare recipients is also unconstitutional.
A Michigan court threw out the state’s 2003 law, which allowed the drug testing of all welfare recipients, finding it violated the constitutional ban against unreasonable search and seizure. In 2014, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals found Florida’s drug testing law for welfare applicants unconstitutional, arguing the mandatory drug test offended the Fourth Amendment.
Public benefits should not constitute unreasonable searches like drug testing.
These standards don’t apply to other groups receiving government benefits.
Imagine if every college student using TOPS were subject to drug testing. Or if every Wall Street banker who received bailout money were subject to drug testing. Or if every Congressperson were subject to a drug test to receive their salary and pension.
We wouldn’t target college students, bankers or legislators. The difference between these groups and TANF recipients is their income level. It’s a Republican scheme to target low-income people.
According to Bloomberg Politics, in 1989, a certain Louisiana state legislator said a urinalysis would “clean out some of the projects, the public housing.” This idea has the support of David Duke, a young leader in the Ku Klux Klan, white supremacist and 1991 gubernatorial candidate.
Republicans should be alarmed when two credible candidates for governor cheer the idea of a white supremacist. It’s clear the ghost of Duke still looms over your party.
Those who champion drug testing welfare recipients should sort out their budget priorities. Shaming those on welfare by fantasizing they’re more likely to use drugs doesn’t help low-income people out of poverty but further stigmatizes those receiving public assistance. Degrading those on welfare wins racist votes, and for that Vittera and Dardenne should be ashamed.
Michael Beyer is a 21-year-old political science senior from New Orleans. You can reach him on Twitter at @michbeyer.