Posts Tagged ‘Florida’
How Constitutional is Mandatory Drug Testing for Welfare Recipients?
A new law enacted in Florida mandates that people who are applying for welfare have to take a drug test at their own expense. If they pass, they are eligible for benefits and the state reimburses them for the test. If they fail, they are denied welfare for a year, until they take another test.
Mandatory drug testing is becoming quite common for welfare applicants across the country. Many states, such as Alabama, Kentucky, Oklahoma and Louisiana – are considering adopting laws like Florida’s. And at the federal level, Senator David Vitter, a Louisiana Republican, has introduced the Drug Free Families Act of 2011, which would require all 50 states to drug-test welfare applicants.
Florida Bill Would Repeal Ban on Funding for Religious Groups
In the 1880s, the Florida state constitution had a clause written in that banned public funding for religious organizations. If a new bill passes in the legislation, the clause will soon be repealed. The bill, HJR 1471, won approval in the state House on April 27, but its companion measure, SB 1218, was stalled in the state Senate.
Is Florida the next Wisconsin?
The next state to enter the union rights battleground, is Florida. New Republican Governor Rick Scott is proposing that teachers in his state contribute 5% to their pensions. Florida teachers rank 47th in the country in salary and the state is facing losing more than a billion dollars in federal stimulus funding.
“We’ve kept the funding the state put up before, we continue that, but I’m focused on making sure that we measure the effectiveness of teachers,” Scott told Fox News Friday. “Our best teachers get paid the best– the most effective and we give parents as much choice as possible.”
Obamacare, Insurers, and Children
One of the biggest successes for Obama and his healthcare plan, was to mandate all insurers to allow parents to keep their children on their policies until age 26. However, there a few problems associated with that idea. In Florida, Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty has said that in his state UnitedHealthcare and Blue Cross Blue Shield have stopped issuing new policies that cover children individually, and in Oklahoma a couple of insurers have done the same. hotair.com
School District Sued for Banning Bibles on Religious Freedom Day
The Collier County School District in Florida, for many years, had allowed a Christian group to distribute Bibles free, to students who were interested during off school hours. On January 16 of this year, World Changers of Florida, was told they could no longer do that. The school board told them the Bibles have no educational value, so the group is suing the district.
The school board and superintendent “have denied World Changers access for no other reason than the religious content and viewpoint of the literature it wishes to distribute, specifically Bibles,” the lawsuit contends. “This unequal treatment, based upon the religious nature of the literature World Changers wishes to distribute, is unconstitutional content-based discrimination, because World Changers’ materials otherwise fit within the parameters Defendants set for the forum. Mathew Staver, founder of Liberty Counsel, the legal group representing World Changers said the group has to sue, to protect the right simply to make free Bibles available to students in public schools.
Yet the school allowed other secular organizations to distribute literature but prevented World Changers from doing so even though it complied with all of the school’s guidelines. The lawsuit is asking the court to declare the school’s actions unconstitutional and requests legal fees and unspecified nominal damages. The school district hasn’t commented on the lawsuit.
