Federal/State Conflict Coming To A Head In Georgia. Who Will Blink?

Feds Warn Georgia Not To Enforce Law That Makes Passing A Drug Test A Condition For Receiving Food Stamps

June 4, 2014 by Ben Bullard 

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Georgia Governor Nathan Deal, a Republican, signed into law earlier this year a bill the State Legislature passed that makes passing a drug test an eligibility contingency for some recipients of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits – aka food stamps.

Now, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), which administers the ever-expanding SNAP program, is cautioning State officials not to enforce the new law, because it places State-controlled parameters on a program that’s administered under Federal guidelines.

House Bill 772, now a Georgia law, requires drug testing for SNAP applicants who, according to language in the bill, raise a “reasonable suspicion” that they’re abusing illegal drugs. Approximately two million of Georgia’s estimated 10 million residents are on food stamps. Nationwide, government spending on SNAP benefits more than doubled during the five-year span between 2007 and 2012.

The new law was scheduled to take effect July 1, but the USDA warned health officials this week that placing State qualifiers on eligibility for Federal assistance is a violation of Federal law. The agency sent a letter Tuesday to Georgia Department of Human Services Commissioner Keith Horton, cautioning that Federal law “prohibits states from mandating drug testing of applicants and recipients.”

Defenders of the Georgia law say the Federal government is making a big deal out of a modest and well-intentioned qualifier, although few are arguing that the law does, in fact, add an additional layer of requirements to SNAP guidelines established at the Federal level – in direct violation of Federal law.

But the State-Federal conflict does expand an ongoing debate over whether Congress should modify SNAP and other forms of public assistance to encourage recipients to help themselves at the same time. Congressional Republicans attempted to tag on a drug testing amendment to the Farm Bill last year in the House, but that effort was weighed down by bad – if facile – public relations, and was abandoned.