Welcome to

For the second time this year, Governor Rick Scott has been told he can not order random drug tests. As Mike Vasilinda tells us, a Federal Judge in Miami has said random drug testing of state employees is unconstitutional.

After 22 years of working for the state, Paul Brewer felt insulted when Rick Scott ordered random drug tests.

“I found it appalling that they would be asking little old ladies to have to pee in a cup,” Brewer said. “I didn’t like the idea at all. I thought it was wrong.”

A federal judge in Miami found the tests unconstitutional, saying employees have a “reasonable expectation of privacy,” and that the plan “does not identify a concrete danger that must be addressed by suspicionless drug-testing.”

The ACLU, which brought the suit, claimed victory.

“Her decision will protect the basic dignity and privacy rights of tens of thousands of state employees who otherwise would have been drug tested for no reason whatsoever” ACLU attorney Shalini Goel Agarwal said.

The vast majority of employees that we talked to said it really didn’t matter one way or the other because it didn’t affect them.

And the president of the union representing state employees said the drug testing money could have been better spent on much need pay raises.

“It demeans state workers and state workers have gone through so much,” AFSCME Local 79 President Jenette Wynn said. “No raises.”

The ruling covers only an executive order Rick Scott issued last year. In a statement, Scott defended the testing and promised an appeal. The judicial finding does not cover new hires by the state and a law that takes effect July first does require testing for all new hires.