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Today, a three-judge panel at the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that a 2011 Florida law mandating that all applicants for the state's Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program submit to suspicionless drug tests violates the Constitution's protection against unreasonable government searches.
The law, championed by Florida Governor Rick Scott in his 2010 campaign for governor and before the legislature in 2011, was challenged in September 2011 by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Florida and the Florida Justice Institute, on behalf of Luis Lebron, a single father, Navy veteran, and then-college student. The ACLU's Criminal Law Reform Project later joined the suit.
The 11th Circuit panel's order rejects arguments made by attorneys for the State of Florida that government has the authority to require people to submit to invasive searches of their bodily fluids without suspicion of wrongdoing, stating "the warrantless, suspicionless urinalysis drug testing of every Florida TANF applicant as a mandatory requirement for receiving Temporary Cash Assistance offends the Fourth Amendment."
"We are very pleased by the Court's opinion, which once again makes clear that the US Constitution forbids the State of Florida from subjecting ordinary private citizens to invasive and unwarranted searches," stated ACLU of Florida associate legal director Maria Kayanan. "This is a resounding affirmation of the values that the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects - that none of us can be forced to submit to invasive and humiliating searches at the whim of the government, and that the Constitution protects the poor and the wealthy alike. The Court has once again confirmed what we argued all along: that the state of Florida cannot treat an entire class of people like suspected criminals simply because they've asked the State for temporary assistance."
Today's ruling is the fourth time the State's arguments in support of the 2011 law have been rejected by a federal court since it was challenged by the ACLU of Florida shortly after going into effect. In October 2011, U.S. District Judge Mary Scriven enjoined enforcement of the law by entering a preliminary injunction. Governor Scott appealed that injunction, which was upheld by the 11th Circuit in February 2013. Judge Scriven issued a final judgment in December 2013, and the State appealed that ruling to the 11th Circuit as well.
Today's unanimous decision by a three-judge panel consisting of Judges Stanley Marcus, Frank M. Hull and District Judge Amy Totenberg, upholds Judge Scriven's December 2013 decision and finds that the law compelling people to submit their bodily fluids for government inspection as a condition of receiving TANF benefits violates the Constitution's protection against unreasonable and unwarranted government searches.
"Florida's suspicionless drug testing program for those seeking assistance clearly violated the Constitution," said Jason Williamson, Staff Attorney with the ACLU's Criminal Law Reform Project. "With today's decision, this prejudiced and intrusive treatment of the poor will come to an end."
Since the passage of the Florida law, many states have enacted various laws and policies mandating drug testing for applicants for certain state benefits, and have looked to the Florida case to determine whether to go forward with broad, suspicionless drug testing like the law struck down by the 11th Circuit today.
"The 11th Circuit has affirmed that that the 4th Amendment applies to everyone, even those applying for government assistance," stated Randall Berg, Executive Director of the Florida Justice Institute and co-counsel with the ACLU. "The same rationale for requiring suspicionless drug tests of TANF recipients could be used to require suspicionless searches for any kind of government benefit, whether it is social security, farm subsidies, or student scholarships. Today, the court has rejected that rationale, drawing a clear line that will keep us from going down that slippery slope."
From today's decision:
Of course, citizens do not abandon all hope of privacy by applying for government assistance. By virtue of poverty, TANF applicants are not stripped of their legitimate expectations of privacy -- they are not employees in dangerous vocations or students subject to the parens patriae power of the state. And 'the collection and testing of urine intrudes upon expectations of privacy that society has long recognized as reasonable.'
[...]
The government's stated needs are general concerns, proffered only at a high level of abstraction and without empirical evidence, and thus do not justify an exception to the Fourth Amendment. [...] Similarly, while it claims an interest in protecting children from drug use by TANF parents, the State has presented no evidence that children of TANF parents face a danger or harm from drug use that is different from the general threat to all children in all families. After all, the State acknowledges that drug use harms all individuals and families, but the State does not -- and cannot -- claim an entitlement to drug test all parents of all children.
The court's ruling is available here: https://aclufl.org/resources/lebron-v-dcf-11th-circuit-affirmance/
A 2012 review of the TANF mandatory urinalysis program found that the state of Florida spent more money reimbursing individuals for drug tests than the state saved on screening out the extremely small percentage. More information is available here: https://www.aclu.org/blog/criminal-law-reform-racial-justice/just-we-suspected-florida-saved-nothing-drug-testing-welfare
The American Civil Liberties Union was founded in 1920 and is our nation's guardian of liberty. The ACLU works in the courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to all people in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States.
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"Elon Musk's commission is a plot to destroy our Social Security by giving it to Wall Street executives—so that you get nothing and they get everything," warned one advocate.
A lengthy series of X posts attacking Social Security as a "nightmare" caught the attention of the platform's mega-billionaire owner, Elon Musk, who could soon take aim at the beloved New Deal program as co-chair of an advisory commission tasked with identifying federal spending to slash.
"Interesting thread," Musk, the world's richest man, wrote late Monday in response to the posts by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), who once said he hopes to pull Social Security "up by the roots and get rid of it," along with Medicare and Medicaid.
In his new thread, Lee characterized Social Security—which lifts more Americans above the poverty line than any other federal program—as a "tax plan" insidiously disguised as a retirement plan and condemned the Social Security Act of 1935 as one of many "deceptive sales techniques the U.S. government has used on the American people."
Max Richtman, president and CEO of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare (NCPSSM), replied Tuesday that Lee's posts amount to "a misrepresentation of Social Security's history and how the program works."
"There is nothing deceptive about Social Security. The social insurance program has been working just fine for nearly 90 years and has never missed a payment," said Richtman. "The kind of propaganda Sen. Lee posted undermines public support for Social Security, making it easier to cut or privatize the program. It is perhaps no coincidence that Sen. Lee's second-biggest campaign contributor by industry is the securities and investment sector."
"The money is ours, Mike Lee, Elon Musk, and Donald Trump. You're not going to get a penny of it."
Lee also claimed the federal government "routinely raids" the Social Security Trust Fund—a longstanding and misleading right-wing talking point.
Social Security Works (SSW), a progressive advocacy group, said Tuesday that by amplifying Lee's thread to his hundreds of millions of followers, Musk "just declared war on Social Security."
"For 89 years, through war and peace, boom time and bust, health and pandemics, Social Security has never missed a single payment," said Alex Lawson, SSW's executive director. "Compared to the risky alternatives on Wall Street, Social Security is a rock of retirement security. If billionaires like Elon Musk paid into Social Security at the same rate as the rest of us on all of their income, we could expand benefits for everyone and pay them in full forever."
"This is a declaration of war against seniors, people with disabilities, and the American public," Lawson said. "The Republicans are coming for your Social Security, which they call a 'nightmare.' Elon Musk's commission is a plot to destroy our Social Security by giving it to Wall Street executives—so that you get nothing and they get everything."
"We've seen this play again and again," he added. "When Republicans destroyed defined-benefit pension plans, they claimed that the market would be able to create amazing returns for everybody. Instead, workers got pennies, while Wall Street managers got billions. That is always the plan. We will defeat this Republican effort to steal our earned benefits. The money is ours, Mike Lee, Elon Musk, and Donald Trump. You're not going to get a penny of it."
Richard Fiesta, executive director of the Alliance for Retired Americans, similarly denounced Lee's thread and Musk's promotion of it, saying both "should enrage and concern every single American who has contributed to Social Security."
"Sen. Mike Lee has dreamed about 'phasing out Social Security' and the benefits generations of Americans have earned for more than a decade. His bad ideas have been rightfully ignored but last night he got a big assist from Elon Musk, who amplified Lee's wrongheaded views about Social Security on X."
"Social Security is a solemn promise between the American people and the government," Fiesta continued. "We pay for Social Security's guaranteed benefits with every paycheck and expect them to be there when we retire, lose a spouse or parent, or become disabled. No one voted to phase out Social Security or let Wall Street gamble with their earned benefits. Older Americans will rightly punish any politician who tries to cut their benefits or gut the system that has worked for generations."
On the campaign trail, President-elect Donald Trump pledged to defend Social Security while simultaneously pushing proposals that would wreck the program's finances.
Many Republican lawmakers, who are soon to be in the majority in both chambers of Congress, have called for raising the Social Security retirement age—a change that would cut benefits across the board. On Tuesday, Rep. Rich McCormick (R-Ga.) toldFox Business Network that "we're going to have to have some hard decisions" on Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare—a euphemism for benefit cuts.
Richtman of NCPSSM said that the kind of attack advanced by Lee and other Republicans "conflicts with President Trump's promise not to tamper with Americans' earned benefits."
"It signals where Trump's MAGA allies in Congress are heading—toward privatization and benefit cuts, something the majority of Americans across party lines say they do not want," Richtman added.
"The declaration of the martial law is now invalid—the people now can be relieved," said National Assembly Speak Woo Won Shik after the vote.
This is a developing story... Check back for possible updates...
Members of South Korea's parliament voted unanimously and across party lines on Tuesday to rescind a declaration of martial law by President Yoon Suk Yeol just hours earlier.
Following the 190-0 vote, National Assembly Speaker Woo Won Shik declared that the president's declaration was no longer valid and vowed that the elected representatives of parliament would "protect democracy with the people."
"Through the passage of the motion through the National Assembly, the president must immediately lift the martial law," Woo said in a statement. "The declaration of the martial law is now invalid—the people [of South Korea] now can be relieved."
The effort by Yoon to impose martial law, reportsReuters, "which he cast as aimed at his political foes, was vocally opposed by the speaker of parliament and even the leader of Yoon's own [conservative] party, Han Dong-hoon, who has clashed with the president over his handling of recent scandals."
According to the Associated Press:
Police and military personnel were seen leaving the Assembly's grounds after Woo called for their withdrawal. Lee Jae-myung, leader of the liberal Democratic Party, which holds the majority in the 300-seat parliament, said the party’s lawmakers will remain in the Assembly’s main hall until Yoon formally lifts his order.
"Democratic Party lawmakers, including me and many others, will protect our country's democracy and future and public safety, lives and properties, with our own lives," Lee told reporters.
The AP was providing a live feed from outside parliament in Seoul, where some had gathered to protest the move by Yoon:
The South Korean military reportedly said it would not stand down until Yoon officially lifted the order, as members of the opposition, including Lee and Woo, vowed to remain inside the parliament until such an order was delivered.
According to the Korean Herald: "Under the Constitution, martial law must be lifted when a parliamentary majority demands it." The newspaper reported that martial law troops had dispersed following the request of the Speaker Woo.
The parliamentary motion was passed less than three hours after Yoon first declared martial law.
"I remind [the presidential office] clearly that they must carry out the process of lifting the martial law without delay," said Woo.
"There is no excuse for leaving us all unprotected," said one advocate.
Emphasizing that the Equal Rights Amendment is the only proposed constitutional amendment that has yet to be certified, 46 U.S. senators have joined the growing national call for President Joe Biden to ensure the proposed statute is part of the Constitution when he leaves office in January.
Reporting on the letter on Tuesday, the Virginia-based publication Style Weekly noted that the state's two Democratic senators—Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine—joined almost the entire Democratic caucus in sending the letter to Biden on November 22. Independent Sens. Angus King of Maine and Bernie Sanders of Vermont signed the letter, but Sen. Joe Manchin (I-W.Va.), who also caucuses with the Democrats, did not.
The ERA was passed by Congress in 1972, and was immediately ratified by 35 states. It took nearly five decades for the amendment to be ratified by three-fourths of U.S. state legislatures, with Virginia becoming the 38th state to ratify it in 2020.
Despite the amendment meeting the ratification requirements, Biden has yet to direct the national archivist, Colleen Shogan, to certify the ERA and publish it in the Federal Register, which would formally cement it as part of the U.S. Constitution.
Once published, the amendment would guarantee legal equality between men and women, and reproductive rights advocates have said it could be invoked by judges to overturn anti-abortion rights laws that have been passed by Republican-controlled state legislatures across the country—an urgent issue as President-elect Donald Trump's second term in office with a GOP-controlled Congress draws near.
"As you are keenly aware," wrote the senators, "after nearly 50 years under the protections of Roe, more than half of all Americans have seen their rights come under attack, with access to abortion care and lifesaving healthcare varying from state to state. A federal solution is needed, and the ERA is the strongest tool to ensure equality and protect these rights for everyone. It would establish the premise that sex-based distinctions in access to reproductive care are unconstitutional, and therefore that abortion bans—which single out women for unfair denial of medical treatment based on sex—violate a constitutional right to sex equality."
The senators noted that state-level equal rights amendments have already been used in Connecticut, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Utah, and Nevada to protect against "legislative infringements on women's reproductive freedom."
The letter was reported ahead of a virtual town hall scheduled for Tuesday at 7:00 pm ET, when Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) is scheduled to speak about the ERA.
The town hall was organized by the Biden Publish the ERA Alliance, which consists of 20 non-partisan advocacy groups including Doctors for America, Free Speech for People, and the League of Women Voters.
Organizers are also planning rallies in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday and next week.
Kati Hornung, co-founder of Vote Equality U.S. and a leader in the grassroots effort that pushed Virginia to ratify the ERA, told Style Weekly that Biden "campaigned on fixing our constitutional gender equality gap and his campaign even requested to speak at a VAratifyERA event in 2019."
"He is running out of time to tell the national archivist, Colleen Shogan, to do her job," she said. "One hundred seventy million women and girls have been waiting 101 years for this amendment to be added and with the increased threats to our LGBTQIA+ family and friends, there is no excuse for leaving us all unprotected."