Scott drug testing order declared unconstitutional

Federal Judge Ursula Ungaro’s ruled today that Governor Rick Scott’s Executive Order requiring drug testing for state workers is unconstitutional.

From the ruling:

“In the present case, the Court searches in vain for any similarly compelling need for testing. The EO [Executive Order] does not identify a concrete danger that must be addressed by suspicionless drug-testing of state employees, and the Governor shows no evidence of a drug use problem at the covered agencies.”

“Finally, the Governor cites state laws requiring some state employees under certain circumstances to make financial disclosures…and providing open access to public records…as establishing a tradition of transparent government sufficient to show that all state employees under his purview have diminished privacy interests with respect to random and pre-employment urinalyses. But the Governor’s reasoning is hardly transparent and frankly obscure. He offers no plausible rationale explaining why the fact that a state employee’s work product and financial status are publically accessible leads to the conclusion that the employee’s expectation of privacy in his or her bodily functions and fluids is then diminished. And in any event, no court has relied upon a policy of transparent government, embodied in laws such as those cited by the Governor, as sufficient to overcome a public employee’s reasonable expectation of privacy in the contents of his or her urine. This Court sees no reason to be the first.”