Senior at UCF sues the DCF, Gov. Scott

A UCF student is the first to challenge legislation passed by the Rick Scott administration that requires welfare beneficiaries to be drug tested before they can qualify for monetary aid.

The American Civil Liberties Union is suing the Department of Children and Families on behalf of UCF senior accounting major Luis Lebron. The ACLU hopes the case will stop the law from being enforced on the grounds that it violates the Fourth Amendment.

Lebron, a Navy veteran who has sole custody of his 4-year-old son and cares for his disabled mother, was seeking welfare benefits when the legislation was passed.

Lebron said he became motivated to challenge the law during a visit to the DCF office, where he was told that as part of the welfare application he must take a drug test.

"I asked myself, why am I doing all this? I served my country for four years, and I'm three months from getting my bachelor's degree," Lebron said. "This is not normal."

After the office visit, Lebron began seeking legal counsel. He contacted the ACLU and from there, everything "fell into place."

"We were very public from the beginning that if this bill was passed, we would challenge it," said Maria Kayanan, ACLU associate legal director and Lebron's court representative. "Then, out of the blue, Mr. Lebron contacted us."

Kayanan said that the complaint against DCF has been filed and that the next step is filing a motion that requests the judge to order the state and DCF to halt enforcement of the statute while the lawsuit is pending.

The initial hearing will take place on Sept. 26. Lebron is suing not only on the behalf of himself but on behalf of all individuals who are subject to suspicion-less drug testing, Kayanan said.

The case files state that the ACLU opposes the drug testing of welfare recipients because without any reason to believe that there is prevalent drug abuse among them, it is a violation of Fourth-Amendment rights that prevents the unreasonable search and seizure of individuals.

As publicly stated, one of Scott's main platforms for passing the law was the belief that there is a higher instance of drug use among welfare beneficiaries than the general population. Lebron said that statistics tell a different story.

According to an analysis conducted by DCF, 2 percent of welfare beneficiaries have tested positive for drugs since the legislation was instated on July 1.

A 2009 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, performed by the United States Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services, showed that 6.3 percent of the national population for those ages 26 and up use illicit drugs.

"The results so far have proven exactly what we've all said: that this isn't a rampant problem, and now you're just wasting state resources that could go toward helping people rather than attacking them," said Rep. Scott Randolph (D-Orange County), who voted against the legislation.

Roger Handberg, UCF professor of political science, said that drug testing individuals in this manner is causing them to give up their constitutional rights without probable cause.

"Scott has an agenda that people on welfare are prone to this behavior; I think that's a mythology," Handberg said. "There are a lot of people on welfare right now that are not who you would call the usual suspects. They're there because the economy collapsed, they don't have a job and they don't know how to find one."

Scott Plakon, Republican Representative for Orange and Seminole counties and supporter of the legislation, said that it is likely that welfare recipients who would normally test positive for drugs are opting out of the application process.

"They are deciding their drug problem is more important to them than the money," Plakon said. "I believe that there is a significantly larger percentage of those that would test positive."

Plakon believes that the law is a way to ensure that welfare funds are going to the constituents that they are intended for.

"We're saying that we're willing, because you're struggling, to help you and pay you a certain amount of money per month," Plakon said. "But what we ask you to do is to allow us to make sure that you aren't using this money for a drug habit."

Kayanan said that welfare applicants who test positive once cannot receive benefits for a year and if results are positive a second time, they cannot receive benefits for three years.

A third time and they are reported to DCF.

Kayanan said that the process doesn't work because the testing is singling out welfare beneficiaries rather than everyone who receives state aid.