Appeals
Court
Agrees:
Drug
Tests
for
Louisiana
Officials
Unconstitutional
1/9/00
Are Louisiana politicians on drugs? Inquiring minds would like to know. The state's new draconian drug testing law requires all people who have anything to do with the state government, including elected state officials, to submit to random drug testing. The problem is that the Supreme Court has already has already ruled conclusively that such drug testing is unconstitutional. A lawyer representing New Orleans Rep. Arthur Morrell, William Rittenberg, opposed the law and was victorious last week when the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld an earlier decision by Federal Judge Eldon Fallon which said the law violated Fourth Amendment protections against illegal search and seizure. While this same amendment is routinely suspended in cases where there is a public interest in maintaining mandatory drug tests, in this case two explanations were cited as reasons for upholding the Constitution. First, that there is no evidence of widespread drug use among Louisiana politicians, and second, the law failed to demonstrate how politicians on drugs threaten public safety. Supporters of the law, which include Louisiana Governor Mike Foster, want to take it to the Supreme Court. Graham Boyd, who spearheads drug policy for the American Civil Liberties Union, said proponents of the law are wasting their time. There is "zero chance the Supreme Court will hear the case," he said, because of its similarity to a case two years ago in which the Court already decided against such a law. In 1997, the Court ruled eight-to-one in the case of Chandler vs. Miller that it was unconstitutional for the state of Georgia require all candidates for public office to submit to random drug testing. Chief Justice William Rehnquist provided the only dissenting vote, reasoning that because politicians automatically give up their right to privacy when they run for office, "submitting to a drug test is no big deal." Boyd said the doomed effort to enforce the law is a transparently political exercise by Louisiana politicians who want to be able to say, "If it weren't for the courts and the ACLU, the law would work." The Louisiana drug testing package also includes drug tests for drivers licenses, college scholarships and welfare benefits, making it the most sweeping set of drug testing laws in the nation. None of these controversial proposals has been implemented yet.
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