Want To Be A State Lawmaker? Take A Drug Test, PA Rep. Says

By Andrew Staub | PA Independent

State lawmakers took their oath of office Tuesday, solemnly promising to uphold the U.S. and Pennsylvania constitutions.

But it shouldn’t stop there, State Rep. John Lawrence, R-Chester says. They should swear to something else, too: that their pee is clean.

Lawrence said candidates for state-level elected office should be subject to a drug test, and he is  floating legislation that would require it.

“I think that voters would be very interested in knowing,” Lawrence said.

The rationale for it is simple. Plenty of private-sector employers require drug tests, and elected officials should be held to the same high standards, Lawrence said.

His idea crystallized last year, when the state House passed a bill requiring prospective schoolteachers and workers to take a drug test. The Senate never acted on it, but it reminded Lawrence of the age-old idiom: what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.

So he introduced a bill requiring drug screenings for candidates for state representative, state senator, governor, lieutenant governor, elected row offices and judges on the Superior, Commonwealth and state Supreme Court.

It didn’t go anywhere, so he’s back at it this session. He’s still refining the language of the bill, he said, but his past proposal called for candidates to file an affidavit stating they had undergone testing for controlled substances within 30 days and that they had not used drugs without a doctor’s prescription. They’d also have to attach the test report.

The legislation was silent on what happened if they tested positive, and Lawrence said he’s still considering whether to add language addressing that this time.

There’s evidence the public likes the concept of drug testing for elected officials.

A HuffPost/YouGov poll last year found that 78 percent of Americans favored random drug testing for members of Congress. That was an even greater majority than those who favored drug testing for welfare recipients.

But had it been contacted, the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania would have been among the 7 percent of respondents that didn’t support the idea. Government has less leeway than the private sector when it comes to drug screenings, said Andy Hoover, the organization’s legislative director.

“If it’s a government-instituted drug test, there’s a Fourth Amendment problem,” Hoover said, but added there can be “narrow” exceptions, such as for state employees who work in public safety or drive a school bus, for example.

Lawrence’s proposal would indeed hold those pursuing elected office to a higher standard than many state employees.

The commonwealth is a drug-free work zone — meaning employees aren’t supposed to use or bring alcohol or drugs to work and aren’t supposed to be in an unfit condition to do their jobs — but only select categories of employees actually face drug testing, said Dan Egan, a spokesman for the Office of Administration.

Pennsylvania requires pre-employment screening and then random drug tests for workers who need a commercial driver’s license to do their job, Egan said. The state also requires those who work in public-safety fields — such as state police cadets, corrections officer trainees and game officers — to undergo pre-employment screens, he said.

“If you have a CDL or carry a gun, you’re probably going to get pre-employment tested,” Egan said.

If Lawrence has his way, the state would add politicians to that list. Some lawmakers said they wouldn’t mind.

State Rep. Jerry Knowles, a Schuylkill County Republican who has been advocating for drug testing for recipients of public assistance, said he supports Lawrence’s idea.

“We’re not above the law,” Knowles said.

State Rep. Anthony DeLuca, D-Allegheny, who sponsored the legislation that inspired Lawrence’s idea, is signing on as a co-sponsor of the drug-testing bill, even though he thinks there’s a “vast difference” between screening candidates for the 253-person General Assembly and thousands of school employees who work around kids every day.

“If he wants to be cute,” DeLuca said, “let him be cute.”