By Ron Barnett
USA TODAY
South Carolina state Sen. Harvey Peeler was at a Chamber of Commerce meeting in January when the human resources director of one of the area's major employers, textile manufacturer Hamrick Mills, told him the company was having trouble hiring some people from the unemployment rolls.
"They said they had potential employees that would come and apply and couldn't pass the drug test," Peeler said.
Peeler, a Republican who says he heard similar stories from other employers, introduced a bill Feb. 9 that would suspend unemployment checks to people who fail a drug test they must take to get a job.
South Carolina is among 27 states, including Florida, Massachusetts and Arizona, to consider legislation this year that would require recipients of various kinds of public assistance to pass drug tests, according to Meagan Dorsch of the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Peeler's bill is in the Senate Labor, Commerce and Industry Committee, which he chairs. A companion bill was introduced in the House last week, with 12 co-sponsors.
Laws requiring passing a drug test as a condition of benefits could run afoul of the Constitution, says Jay Rorty, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Criminal Law Reform Project.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1989 that "suspicionless searches," including random drug testing, violate Fourth Amendment safeguards against unreasonable searches and seizures, except in cases where there's a "special need," such as public safety, Rorty said.
Legislation on the issue is moving ahead :
- A bill is moving through the Arizona legislature that would require random drug testing of all welfare recipients, Dorsch says. The bill has passed the state Senate and awaits a third and final reading in the House.
- Since March, three bills have been introduced in Florida's legislature, Dorsch says. Republican Florida Gov. Rick Scott "definitely supports drug testing for welfare recipients," says spokesman Lane Wright.
- Republican state Rep. F. Jay Barrows of Massachusetts has offered a bill that calls for random testing of people with prior drug convictions who are receiving assistance. If they test positive, the state would place them in a rehab program, under the state's mandatory health insurance coverage program.
"It's not punishing them. It's trying to help them," Barrows said.
Other states with bills under consideration include Alabama, California, Connecticut, Georgia, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Mississippi, North Carolina, New Mexico, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and West Virginia, Dorsch reports.
USA TODAY