{"id":6922,"date":"2012-04-02T05:50:03","date_gmt":"2012-04-02T05:50:03","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2012-04-02T05:50:03","slug":"en-US","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=6922","title":{"rendered":"PolitiFact Florida: &#8220;Are lawmakers protected by First Amendment against drug testing?&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>PolitiFact Florida: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tampabay.com\/news\/politics\/stateroundup\/politifact-florida-are-lawmakers-protected-by-first-amendment-against-drug\/1223029\">Are lawmakers protected by First Amendment against drug testing?<\/a> by Katie Sanders:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Miami Herald columnist Carl Hiaasen torched Florida lawmakers for passing a drug-testing bill for state workers that excluded one class of government employees: the elected officials who passed the law.<\/p>\n<p>Hiaasen took particular issue with the proposal&#8217;s House sponsor Rep. Jimmie Smith, a Republican from Lecanto, and his explanation why the law excludes Gov. Rick Scott and legislators.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It was found to be unconstitutional to drug test elected officials because it prevents us, as citizens, from having that First Amendment right,&#8221; Smith said.<\/p>\n<p>Smith&#8217;s defense is novel \u2014 and wrong, it turns out.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Not just wrong: Off the wall. A de jure &#8220;speech and debate&#8221; defense to drug testing? Come on: That doesn&#8217;t even pass the laugh test.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>b2evALnk.b2WPAutP <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=6922\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"pingsdone","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6922"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6922\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}