One more indication the coming short session of the General Assembly won't be as peaceful as some might hope:
Two Indiana Republicans want welfare recipients to pass drug tests before they can receive benefits.
[. . .]
Other states including Missouri and Florida have pushed for the testing, but measures have run up against Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure. At least one federal judge has placed a testing law on hold.
[. . .]
But the issue has resurfaced, and supporters of such a measure say it's a matter of fairness: Indiana residents scrapping for a paycheck shouldn't have their tax dollars go to welfare recipients who abuse drugs.
[. . .]
Ken Falk, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana, said the measure sounds like a clear violation of the Constitution's protection against unreasonable search and seizure.
There are plenty of reasons the drug-testing might not be a good idea. It would be expensive to administer, for one thing, and isn't likely to have any practical effect on drug abuse. But I wonder about the constitutionality issue. It hasn't been tested at the Supreme Court level, and it's anybody's guess how it would fare there.
A good question, I think: If it's OK for me to undergo a mandatory drug test as a condition of employment, why is it wrong to submit someone to one as a condition of getting welfare? I'm not crazy about the workplace tests, either, but it seems to me the same arguments apply to both cases. They should both be considered unreasonable or both be impermissible. It's like the case of motorcycle helmets and seat belts. The same arguments apply to both, and it's absurd that Indiana requires one but not the other. (Yeah, yeah, I know, different rules for private business and public policy, but still . . .)
It's hard to think dispassonately about the issue since it does feel unfair to think our hard-earned tax dollars might be supporting somebody's drug habit. But I haven't seen any evidence that drug use is any higher in the welfare population than the general population, so we'd be subjecting them to the same unreasonable invasion of privacy we don't think we should tolerate.
