The media buzzed last week as Metairie State Rep. John LaBruzzo proposed drug tests for all welfare recipients in Louisiana in order to receive benefits.  The Bucktown legislator’s announcement that he has pre-filed such a bill for the upcoming April 27^th Regular Session immediate brought remembrances of his proposal earlier this year of paying poor women to be sterilized in order to reduce their potential welfare impact--if they had children.

        “My goal is to try and make sure that we’re saving the taxpayer’s money and we’re getting the biggest bang for our buck and we’re eliminating those people who are abusing drugs in the welfare system,” LaBruzzo told WWL-TV.    

        However, some political insiders have suggested that his motive is more electable than fiscal.  LaBruzzo is already openly campaigning to succeed Julie Quinn in the State Senate, and faced with far better financed contenders, he needs to keep his name in the newspapers.

         Sen. Quinn lost an election for Jefferson Parish councilwoman on Saturday.   

         State Representatives Tim Burns of Mandeville and Walker Hines of New Orleans have expressed an interest in the race as have former State Reps. Melinda Schwegmann and Diane Winston.   They all have one thing in common, access to greater sources of campaign dollars than Johnny LaBruzzo. 

         Proposing the controversial measure has garnered hundreds of thousands of dollars in free publicity for the District 81 Representative on an issue which rings popular with the Senate District 5’s overwhelmingly Republican electorate. 

         Quietly, other conservative legislators have begun to indicate that they would actually vote for the measure.  In the Baton Rouge’s Senate District 16 Special Election, Dan Claitor and Lee Domingue went into the April 4^th runoff both pledging to essentially support LaBruzzo’s bill, Domingue outright and Claitor “with modifications”, so powerful was the issue with the GOP voters going to the polls. 

          Some have even suggested that LaBruzzo, already a controversial politician, may have been actually tapped to carry an issue that already enjoyed extensive support within the House GOP Caucus.   As one legislative insider put it, “How do we know that Tucker didn’t put him up to it?”  The House Speaker Jim Tucker has not taken a position on the bill, and sources close to him deny any such suggestion. 

          LaBruzzo, already a lightning bolt for political controversy, could, though, provide the perfect cover for the issue to get on the floor.  He gets to argue to conservative voters throughout his House district and Senate District 5 at large that he defends them as no other legislator would, and his colleagues manage to move a controversial issue in the statute books while simultaneously avoiding being the personal targets of the ACLU and every other progressive group opposed to such an idea.  

          Others might not have the temerity to sponsor such a measure worried about their reputations among centrist voters and in the media, but LaBruzzo is different.  He has made a career over the past twelve months of courting controversy in order to strengthen his electoral position.  

          The State Rep. earned wide criticism in his conservative district when he actively supported last year’s legislative pay raise.  A recall effort was launched that ultimately failed, yet it did lead several potential challengers for 2011 primary—quite a switch from the 2007 re-election campaign when LeBruzzo won without opposition. 

          Then, one afternoon, he began to muse aloud to a City Business reporter about the notion of paying for sterilizations of the poor, and suddenly, LaBruzzo found himself on CNN.  More importantly, calls came in from a variety of different quarters in his district supporting his position.  Some of the same people that once elected David Duke to this State Rep. seat were commending John LaBruzzo.   

          Few mentioned the pay raise amidst the far more controversial stand.  

          While the sterilization arguments may have seemed a joke to most voters last time, on this bill, LaBruzzo may have a majority of public support.   

          The State Representative has argued that the issue is not as racially-charged as some have suggested.  The majority of welfare recipients in Louisiana are white. Others, from police officers to football players must drug test, why not they?

          Moreover, LaBruzzo the legislation also has “tough on crime” overtones.   A companion measure declares anyone convicted of a drug felony ineligible for food stamps and other assistance for up to 10 years

          Most importantly, the State Rep. can argue that Louisiana would be simply following the legal trend in other states. In Arizona, Hawaii, Missouri, and Oklahoma, bills have been filed that would force people seeking public assistance to undergo random drug tests and forgo benefits if they test positive. In Florida, a bill has been filed to do the same to people who receive unemployment compensation. In West Virginia, both groups are targeted.  

         And, on March 5 the Kansas House gave final approval to a bill that requires Kansans who seek public assistance to undergo drug testing. The bill, HB 2275, passed by a margin of 99-26.

           In most cases, legislators are pointing to the 1996 federal Welfare Reform Act, which authorized -- but did not require -- random drug testing as a condition of receiving welfare benefits. But, as the Drug War Chronicle magazine noted, a major problem for the proponents of such schemes is that the only state to try to actually implement a random drug testing program got slapped down by the federal courts.

           Michigan passed a welfare drug testing law in 1999 that required all Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) applicants to provide urine samples to be considered eligible for assistance. But that program was shut down almost immediately by a restraining order. Three and a half years later, the US 6th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld an earlier district court ruling that the blanket, suspicionless testing of recipients violated the Fourth Amendment's proscription of unreasonable searches and seizures and was thus unconstitutional.

        "This ruling should send a message to the rest of the nation that drug testing programs like these are neither an appropriate or effective use of a state's limited resources," said the ACLU Drug Policy Litigation Project head Graham Boyd at the time.

         According to the ACLU's now-renamed Drug Law Reform Project, which had intervened in the Michigan case, the other 49 states had rejected drug testing for various reasons. At least 21 states concluded that the program "may be unlawful," 17 states cited cost concerns, 11 gave a variety of practical or operational reasons, and 11 said they had not seriously considered drug testing at all (some states cited more than one reason).

          Random drug testing of welfare recipients has also been rejected by a broad cross-section of organizations concerned with public health, welfare rights, and drug reform, including the American Public Health Association, National Association of Social Workers, Inc., National Association of Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Counselors, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, Association of Maternal and Child Health Programs, National Health Law Project, National Association on Alcohol, Drugs and Disability, Inc., National Advocates for Pregnant Women, National Black Women's Health Project, Legal Action Center, National Welfare Rights Union, Youth Law Center, Juvenile Law Center, and National Coalition for Child Protection Reform.

         Still, using remarkably consistent rhetoric, legislators across the land are demanding that those seeking benefits be tested.

        In West Virginia, Rep. Craig Blair (R-Berkeley County) has created a web site, Not With My Tax Dollars, to publicize his bill, which would apply to anyone seeking welfare, food stamps, or unemployment insurance. "I think it's time that we get serious about the problem of illegal drug users abusing our public assistance system in West Virginia," he wrote on the website. "We should require random drug testing for every individual receiving welfare, food assistance or unemployment benefits. After all, more and more employers are requiring drug testing. Why not make sure that people who are supposed to be looking for work are already prequalified by being drug free?"

        In Florida, Sen. Mike Bennett (R-Bradenton), went much further than LaBruzzo has even suggested, sponsoring a bill that would require random drug testing of one out of 10 people seeking unemployment benefits. Those people are supposed to be "ready, able, and willing" to work, he told Tampa Bay Online. "If they can't pass a drug test for unemployment compensation," Bennett said, "then they can't pass a drug test at my construction business."

         In Hawaii, Rep. Mele Carroll (D-District 13) recently introduced her own "Welfare Drug Testing" bill, a measure composed very similarly to LaBruzzo’s.

        "The idea came from knowing a lot of families and members in the community who are on assistance that may or may not use some of our public funds for their drug habit," Carroll told KHON in Honolulu. "If the state is pouring money out there to assist families, this could be a way to look at some of our families who are on substance abuse. Make them accountable," she argued.

        Of course, not all agree.  "These bills are a waste of money at a time when governments don't have money to waste," said Bill Piper, national affairs director for the Drug Policy Alliance told the Drug War Chronicle.

        "And they're extremely discriminatory in that they focus on someone smoking marijuana, but don't address at all whether someone is blowing his check on alcohol or gambling or vacations. The bottom line is that even if someone is using drugs, that doesn't mean they should be denied public assistance, health care, or anything else to which citizens are entitled. These bills are unnecessarily cruel and they show that some politicians still think it's in their best interest to pick on vulnerable people with substance abuse issues."

        “Drug testing welfare recipients…is a terribly misguided policy," said Hilary McQuie, western director for the Harm Reduction Coalition. "If you find people and cut them off the rolls, what's the end result? You have to look at the end result."

         LaBruzzo differs with his critics, noting that in a time of reduced budgets, benefits should go to those who do not break the law.  Nor does the State Rep. foresee a cataclysmic societal result, observing that drug testing itself is already widely practiced throughout the economy.  This statutory change merely brings welfare beneficiaries in line with what employees in many other professions regularly endure. 

         LaBruzzo certainly does not consider his legislation cruel or uncompassionate.  He is quick to point out that there are exceptions to the bill for those who undergo a drug treatment program approved by Social Services..  Those individuals will become eligible for assistance after two years after completing the program.  The current law states that a felon will not receive any assistance for one year from the date of any conviction. 

         Regardless of the complaints of his critics, “getting tough” on welfare receiving-drug users paints LaBruzzo in a positive light with the very conservative voters he seeks to soon woo---in a district where that type of campaign is usually an expensive proposition for a politician.   Senate District 5 is one of the largest geographic seats in South Louisiana, and would normally require hundreds of thousands of dollars in television purchases just to create name recognition.   

         Finding oneself of the front page of the Times-Picayune and every other newspaper in the state for multiple days, not to mention the lead in every television news broadcast, certainly creates an impression in the public’s mind.    The LaBruzzo measure has popular support and he emerges as a ongoing political player—thanks to this Welfare bill.  

Christopher Tidmore hosts the Political Roundtable from 4-6 PM weekdays on KKAY 1590 AM White Castle/Baton Rouge and on the internet at www.kkay1590.com.