Pubdate: Sat, 15 Jul 2000
Source: Northwest Florida Daily News (FL)
Copyright: 2000 Northwest Florida Daily News
Contact:  http://www.nwfdailynews.com/

RIDING ROUGHSHOD

Imagine that you're an elected state legislator and one evening, just
as you sit down to dinner with your family, the local police chief
shows up with several officers. They want to search your house to see
if you have any stolen property on the premises. No one has made an
allegation against you; the state legislature just sent the officers
over to make sure you were a person of "integrity, sound judgment,
reliability and seriousness of purpose." Invoking your Fourth
Amendment right against unreasonable searches, you'd probably decline
to allow the search.

This scenario is, in a sense, what elected state officials - except
judges - have faced under a Louisiana law that required such officials
to submit to random drug tests. Last month the Supreme Court let stand
a lower court's ruling that such testing violated the officials'
rights. The state had argued that the law didn't violate the
Constitution's ban on unreasonable searches because the state has
"special needs" to deter drug use by those in office.

The Louisiana law was passed in 1997 to ensure that officials would be
"beyond reproach," even though there was no evidence that drug use was
a problem in the statehouse. It was challenged by two state lawmakers.
A federal judge said the program was unconstitutional and the ruling
was upheld by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 1998. The court
noted that "the public's interest in preventing drug abuse among
elected officials, while not insignificant, cannot supersede one of
the Constitution's most fundamental proscriptions."

We agree with both courts. In efforts to stem illegal drug use in this
country, government at all levels has enacted laws that ride roughshod
over citizens' rights. Laws such as this one from Louisiana attempt to
do what is seen as good - stopping illegal drug use - by doing
something bad: ignoring our rights.

Our nation was founded on the rule of law. That law was instituted to
guarantee protection of each individual's rights. Laws that trample,
or even sidestep, individual rights chip away at the freedoms that
make our society what it should be.

The Louisiana law and a similar Georgia law that was struck down by
the Supreme Court in 1998 are particularly onerous because they don't
require probable cause for a search. They assume everyone is guilty
and each person must prove his innocence. That's not the way we do
things in this country.

Another troubling factor in this episode is the fact that the
Louisiana legislature added to the scope of government without any
evidence that such growth was necessary. Our hats are off to the two
lawmakers and the Supreme Court for reining in the growth of government.

Granted, drug testing is controversial in general and has become
ubiquitous throughout the private sector. But there's a difference: In
the private sector, you have no right to a job; an employer, by
contrast, does have the right to mandate drug tests if they're deemed
necessary. Public office, on the other hand, is something everyone has
a right to hold, voters willing. And government has no more business
making drug testing a precondition for officeholding than for voting
itself.
- ---
MAP posted-by: greg