Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI)
Drug tests for public assistance applicants are one of the hot Republican trends of recent years, so of course Wisconsin Republicans want to get in on that action. Scapegoating poor people without saving money? Dude, Republicans are
on it. But
trust Gov. Scott Walker to go the extra mile, as he did when he signed the state budget—but vetoed 104 items in it—on Sunday.
Walker removed a provision that would have limited the tests to applicants with “reasonable suspicion,” saying the administration shouldn’t have limits on who it wants to screen. But that move puts the state at a real risk of being sued, given that Florida’s law drug testing all welfare applicants was struck down by the courts as a violation of the Fourth Amendment’s “unreasonable search and seizure” clause.
The presidential hopeful’s original proposal also planned to pay for free drug treatment and job training for those who tested positive, but another change he made on Sunday eliminated the free treatment. While his first proposal made it difficult to determine how much the drug testing program would cost the state, the official policy will now leave impoverished people who have limited health insurance no way to afford drug treatment.
Some states,
led by Florida, have found that the number of people who test positive for drugs is so small that the cost of the drug tests outweighs the money saved by denying benefits. But Republicans are generally willing to waste money on priorities like stigmatizing poor people.
And Scott Walker apparently thinks that getting into a court battle over unconstitutional searches in the form of drug tests, and most likely losing in court, will make far-right presidential primary voters in other states happier than seeing him sign a law that will hold up in court but be restricted to only some food stamp applicants.