The Senate on Tuesday passed legislation that would repeal an Obama administration rule that limits the ability of states to prevent drug users from receiving unemployment benefits.
The rule, which was published in the Federal Register last August, was meant to implement a law that requires people receiving these benefits to be able and ready for work. The law gave states the option of denying drug users these benefits.
The Senate voted 51-48 to kill the rule.
The resolution disapproves of the rule and compels the Labor Department to write another one. It was passed under the Congressional Review Act, a law that gives Congress the ability to block recently enacted rules by passing disapproval resolutions with a simple majority vote that are then signed by the president.
Republicans opposed the rule from the Labor Department because it limited this option, by only allowing states to deny benefits to people in the transportation or pipeline management industries, those who use firearms in their job, or people in jobs that normally require drug testing.
“The final regulation defined the role of an occupation so narrowly that it basically makes it impossible for states to implement any meaningful drug-testing policy,” Senate Finance Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said on the Senate floor Tuesday. He said with this legislation, the Labor Department will be able to rewrite the rule that better reflects Congress’ intent.
Democrats worry that any changes to the rule would create too many obstacles for people to get unemployment benefits who are genuinely looking for work and who have already paid into the unemployment benefits program. They argued that lawmakers should focus on helping these people get treatment and not put down those individuals who have found themselves in a bind.
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., the ranking member on the finance committee, said “this measure before us is simply bizarre.” He argued that the new legislaiton “vilifies unemployed workers who are actually less likely to use drugs than the general population” and defies a bipartisan compromise in reached in 2012. He also warned of a “legal minefield” for those state who will still want to conduct the drug testing.
The Drug Policy Alliance, a group pushing for the decriminalization of drug use, said the Republican legislation is a waste of U.S. taxpayers’ dollars.
“They say it’s about helping states save money, but this would actually set up states to waste tremendous amounts of money,” said Grant Smith, deputy director of national affairs with the Drug Policy Alliance. “Congress should be helping people get to work, not wasting taxpayer dollars to punish people who are trying to get back to work.”
Smith added that it is a “small handful” of Republican lawmakers pushing a “deceptive” agenda with this legislation. “It’s shameful to see Republicans who have provided so much leadership recently on the opioid crisis now pushing drug testing schemes that provide no treatment and only serve to stigmatize and punish people who have lost their jobs,” said Smith.
The group also shared a letter signed by nearly 50 civil rights, faith, and criminal justice organizations that was sent to the U.S. House opposing the drug testing legislation.
The House voted mainly on party lines in February to kill the rule. The legislation, H.J.Res. 42, now goes to the White House, where President Trump is expected to sign it. Last month, the Trump administration put out a statement that condemned the Obama-era rule for imposing an “arbitrarily narrow definition of occupations and constrains a state’s ability to conduct a drug testing program in its unemployment insurance system.”
