Committees advance bills requiring drug screens of welfare recipients
Both houses of the General Assembly continue to advance legislation that would require local social services agencies to screen certain welfare recipients for possible drug use and subject some to drug tests.
The Senate Finance Committee and the House Health, Welfare and Institutions Committee advanced separate bills this morning, despite objections from some Democrats who argued that the measures are not constitutional.
This is the second year in a row that Republican lawmakers have pushed for such legislation. Democrats have decried the proposals as attempts to exploit the poor for political purposes.
On a party-line vote, the Republican-controlled Senate Finance Committee advanced a bill (Senate Bill 721) that would require local social services departments to screen each participant in the Virginia Initiative for Employment Not Welfare (VIEW) program and determine whether there is “probable cause” to believe the person is using drugs. Those suspected of using drugs could be required to take drug tests and lose benefits for 12 months if they refuse and test positive. Sen. Bill Carrico, R-Grayson County, is the bill’s sponsor.
The requirement would cost the state more than $587,000 in its first year and entail additional costs for local governments, according to fiscal impact statements attached to Carrico’s bill. The Commission on Local Governments received impact statements from 20 localities, which reported widely varying cost estimates. Roanoke reported that the drug screening requirement would increase costs by less than $5,000. Virginia Beach reported that its costs would increase by more than $93,000.
The House Health, Welfare and Institutions Committee endorsed a similar bill (HB 1769) by a vote of 14-8 and sent the bill to the budget-writing Appropriations Committee. Del. Rob Bell, R-Albemarle County, sponsored the bill, which incorporates measures sponsored by other Republican delegates.
Del. Joe Morrissey, D-Henrico County, asked Bell is he was persuaded by a federal court ruling that a similar program in Florida was “unconstitutional and impractical.”
“No. Thank you,” Bell replied.
Del. Mark Sickles, D-Fairfax County, asked if the Division of Legislative Services had assessed the constitutionality of the bill. The committee’s chairman, Del. Bobby Orrock, R-Caroline County, said the agency no longer issues such opinions.
“That is a court call, not staff call,” Orrock said.
– Michael Sluss
January 29, 2013 - 3:15 PM
About time. I have to take a drug test to work, and pay the taxes that they gobble up.
Maybe without drugs they will realize that there are jobs out there.
Time to drug test politicians who are also paid with our taxes.
$587,000+ for drug testing? What happened to our spending problem?
Posts 1,2 &3…Couldn`t have said it better myself.
@2
Totally agree. And the fact is most drugs are only in the system for a short time. Mainly pot smokers would get caught. And even then, their are flush products on the market that could even hide that.600,000 grand for nothing.
“America’s Four Socioeconomic Classes
1. Parasitic financial Aristocracy (creates no value, skims national surplus)
2. High value creation (employed, heavily taxed)
3. Low value creation (employed/informal economy, lightly taxed)
4. No value creation (unemployed, dependent)
In the conventional view, the wealthy subsidize the poor via taxes and donations to charity (i.e. noblesse oblige). But the conventional framework ignores the key question of where the wealthy obtained their fortunes, and the consequences of that wealth acquisition on the larger economy.
What we need to consider is what happens as the parasitic and dependent classes take an ever-larger share of the national surplus while the classes creating most of the value decline in size and political influence.”
http://www.oftwominds.com/blogjan13/4-classes01-13.html
It is no good wasting money “going after” only one segment of users or abusers IMO.
Umm, applewood, #2 and #3 aren’t agreeing with #1. Sheesh.
Disaster…..there goes my lawn furniture. Property crimes will increase….people’s gonna eat!
I agree Mr. Art Hill, drug test legislators just like the military!