Title:
Virginia legislators want poor people to pee in a cup
Message:
Virginia’s legislature is seeking new and emerging ways to make poverty even more humiliating by forcing welfare recipients to submit to drug testing. Sponsored by Sen. Steve Martin (R-Chesterfield), Senate Bill 6 would require poor people to submit a urine sample as a precondition for receiving benefits. The bill would not require testing of government contractors, executives of corporations who receive multi-million dollar tax abatements, or other recipients of taxpayer dollars who aren’t poor.
Please ask your legislators to oppose this wasteful, discriminatory legislation.
I could tell you about how similar programs have been ruled unconstitutional in other states, don’t actually save money, and unfairly stigmatize the poor, but I’ll let the Daily Show do it better (and funnier) than I could:
Fortunately, the House version of the bill stalled after a fiscal analysis showed it would cost more money than it would save, but Senate Bill 6 remains on course for passage in the Senate, meaning this discriminatory scheme could soon be reality. And make no mistake, it is discriminatory. As Sen. Yvonne Miller put it, “[a]re there any people receiving money from the commonwealth who are tested for drugs other than poor people?"
Please take just a minute to tell your legislators that you don’t approve of wasting money by picking on the poor.
