Florida Judge Rules That The Poor Have Rights Too

(The caricature of Rick Scott on the left is by DonkeyHotey.)

When Republican Rick Scott became the governor of Florida, he instituted a hard turn to the right for that state's government. And one of the right-wing beliefs he instituted was the concept that poor people don't have the same rights as other citizens -- and they can be treated in whatever arbitrary and unfair way the government wants.

This was illustrated in the law he guided through the state legislature regarding welfare applicants. That law mandated that all applicants must first undergo a drug test before they could be approved for benefits. Scott and his GOP cohorts seemed convinced that poor people needing welfare help were lazy drug users, and that the state could save a lot of money by forcing them to take drug tests.

But it didn't work out that way. The program ended up costing more money than it saved, because only about 2.6% of the applicants tested positive (and the savings from denying these people welfare did not come close to equaling the cost of testing all applicants). It turns out, much to the Republicans' dismay,  that poor people are no more likely to use drugs than anyone else.

But more importantly, this Florida law invaded the constitutionally guaranteed rights of the poor -- to not be subjected to a search by the government without probable cause and a search warrant issued by a judge. And make no mistake, a government-ordered drug test is a search -- a very invasive search of the worst kind (a search of a person's own body).

Finally, someone in authority recognized that, and took action. U.S. District Judge Mary S. Scriven of Orlando tossed out the offensive Florida law last Tuesday, ruling it violated the United States Constitution. Judge Scriven said:

“The court finds there is no set of circumstances under which the warrantless, suspicionless drug testing at issue in this case could be constitutionally applied.”

I know this probably comes as a shock to right-wing Republicans, but it turns out that poor people have rights -- the same rights as everyone else in this country.