Last night, The Daily Show skewered Florida state Rep. Scott Plakon (R-Hypocrisyville) for pushing a policy requiring welfare applicants to be tested for drugs while failing to subject other Floridians who receive taxpayer dollars – like state legislators – to the same level of scrutiny.

Although this drug testing program has cost Florida taxpayers $200,000 and has been halted by a federal judge, many other states are scrambling implement similar rules. Last year, bills requiring drug screenings for welfare recipients were filed in 36 states, but passed in only Florida, Arizona, and Missouri. This year, states already hearing legislation on the matter include Virginia, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, and Georgia, to name only a few. 

Some of the Republicans in state legislatures considering welfare drug testing bills may find themselves on the other end of the plastic cup, so to speak. Some Democrats are objecting to the singling-out of only one of the many groups who receive taxpayer money by broadening the application of this principle. 

In Tennessee: 

G.A. Hardaway, D-Memphis, said lawmakers should have to take the same drug test that a new law would require for welfare recipients.

Hardaway said he has heard from his constituents and some have asked how the public can be sure that lawmakers are not on drugs.

He said the voter had a valid point, and he plans to file his General Assembly drug test bill if the welfare drug test issue surfaces before lawmakers. 

In Georgia (where a sponsor of that state’s welfare drug testing bill has been charged with a DUI, interestingly):

[Democratic state Rep. Scott] Holcomb’s bill, HB 677, would require anyone elected to serve in the General Assembly to undergo mandatory drug testing within three months of taking office or beginning any subsequent term. Failing would mean removal from office. “[W]e should lead by example,” Holcomb said, and “shouldn’t expect others to live by standards that we don’t uphold ourselves.” 

In Indiana, a bill that would require drug testing of both welfare recipients and state legislators is actually moving forward. 

[GOP state Rep. Jud] McMillin initially proposed a pilot program for drug testing only welfare applicants, but last week state Rep. Ryan Dvorak (D-South Bend) amended the bill to include drug and alcohol testing for lawmakers. … Indiana is the first state where lawmaker drug testing has actually advanced, though the measure's fate in the state senate is uncertain. 

Even some Republicans in the Missouri legislature have gotten on board with the drug-testing-of-state-legislators thing, judging by a bill filed last month. 

Bills targeting the needy for expensive, unnecessary, and invasive testing betray an ugly stereotype too many GOP legislators seem to hold. Assuming that citizens with extremely low -- or no -- income have substance abuse problems or are somehow “criminal” and “undeserving” of public assistance is a brand of bigotry that has no place in any state of our great nation. 

After the 2010 Census, Florida’s rapidly-growing population earned the state two additional seats in Congress. Much of this growth is attributable to an increase in the Hispanic population. In particular, the surging Puerto Rican population in central Florida has spurred the Florida Senate to consider a proposal that would create a Hispanic-majority district in that area. 

One GOP state Senator wants to put the brakes on this plan until “Hispanic-speaking people” who vote are screened for citizenship. 

Sen. Alan Hays, R-Umatilla, rekindled the divisive debate over illegal immigration when he told the Senate committee reviewing a series of congressional redistricting plans that “before we design a district anywhere in the state of Florida for Hispanic voters, we need to ascertain that they are citizens of the United States. 

"We all know there are many Hispanic-speaking people in Florida that are not legal,’’ he said. “And I just don’t think it’s right that we try to draw a district that encompasses people that really have no business voting anyhow,” he said.

Members of Sen. Hays’ own Party were upset by his comments. 

Said Rep. Jose Diaz, R-Miami: “I think that it is unfortunate that anyone would question whether or not Hispanic voters are American citizens,’’ he said. “It is basic Government 101 that in our country only U.S. Citizens can exercise the right to vote.” 

Further, the Elections Supervisor from Sen. Hays’ own district says his concerns about illegal voting are baseless. 

But Lake County Supervisor of Elections Emogene W. Stegall said that Hays is mistaken if he believes there is a problem with illegal residents registering to vote. 

“We’ve never had a problem with illegal voting in Lake County, no way,’’ said Stegall, who has served in the county’s election’s office for 40 years. 

And as though that failed to deprive GOP Sen. Hays’ concerns of any semblance of legitimacy, consider that Puerto Ricans, whose population surge spurred the proposal to create this new district, are American citizens from birth. 

Meanwhile, Florida’s House Democratic Leader-designate Perry Thurston is standing up for voters, rather than trying searching for ways to disqualify them. 

Today Rep. Thurston wrote an open letter to Republican Florida Governor Rick Scott expressing his “profound disapproval of [his] administration’s attempts to make it harder for many Floridians to vote.” 

The Rep. Thurston’s letter reads, in part: 

Through taxpayer-funded legal shenanigans -- including Secretary of State Kurt Browning’s efforts to ignore landmark federal civil rights legislation that protects racial and language minorities in Florida -- it is clear that there is a move to suppress the vote. 

I firmly disagree with Secretary Browning’s assertion that Section 5 of the federal Voting Rights Act is no longer required in Florida or the United States. 

Accordingly, I am confident that the federal court is likely to block significant sections of the new “voter suppression” elections law that Republicans in the Florida Legislature passed and you signed into law earlier this year. Those unnecessary statutory changes amount to a dangerous threat to the voting rights of Florida’s language and racial minorities, and thankfully the federal courts are reviewing this misguided directive. 

I am sure the court will see how these desperate Republican attempts to keep college students, racial and language minorities, and other Democratic voters away from the polls are almost comical in their transparent partisanship.

The restrictive new voting law to which Rep. Thurston refers includes the following provisions: 

• Forces anyone updating his or her name or address on election day to fill out a provisional ballot (which often go uncounted). Since 1973, Florida voters have been able to update name or address without major issues.
• Forces any group running a registration drive to file paperwork for every volunteer and paid worker with the state.
• Reduces the number of days in the early voting period.

Florida’s Republican Secretary of State has filed a complaint seeking to declare Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act unconstitutional. Because of VRA Section 5, the restrictive measures of Florida’s new voting legislation await federal review and approval. It seems that Florida Republicans fear their new law is too repressive to pass muster. 

We applaud Rep. Thurston for standing up for voting rights even as his GOP colleagues seek to baselessly question the eligibility of certain voting groups to cast ballots and restrict access to the franchise.

As President Obama strives to maneuver his jobs plan through Congress and Democrats in states across the country work to create real solutions to their states’ unemployment and budget crises, a Republican lawmaker in Florida is pushing his own big idea for job creation. 

GOP state Rep. Ritch Workman, whose “zeal for repeal” and crusade to diminish Florida’s government are well-known among his colleagues, wants to get Big Government and its regulations out of the way and re-legalize dwarf tossing. 

So Rep. Ritch Workman, R-Melbourne, filed a bill this week to bring back "dwarf tossing," the barbaric and dangerous barroom spectacle that was imported from Australia and thrived briefly in Florida before it was outlawed in 1989. 

"I'm on a quest to seek and destroy unnecessary burdens on the freedom and liberties of people," Workman said. "This is an example of Big Brother government. 

"All that it does is prevent some dwarfs from getting jobs they would be happy to get," Workman said. "In this economy, or any economy, why would we want to prevent people from getting gainful employment?" 

Yes, this Florida Republican’s proposed response to the gargantuan task of reducing unemployment is to reinstate a degrading and dangerous practice that poses specific risks to a select group of people. 

Workman's efforts to create employment opportunities for little people willing to be objectified as flying objects was not done after consultation with anyone eligible for this line of work. 

"The people who were thrown were alcoholics with low self-esteem," said Robert Van Etten, 62, of Stuart. "Many of them were injured. One committed suicide." 

Van Etten, a 3-foot-5-inch engineering consultant and former president of Little People of America, has worked with his wife, Angela, for years to educate people about the physical and psychological dangers of dwarf tossing. 

This bill is the latest in a long line of the GOP’s extreme proposals to improve their states’ economies. Past greatest hits include 

• Loosening child labor laws
• Reinstating some iteration of the gold standard
• Attacking minimum wage laws. 

If proposals like legalizing dwarf tossing are representative of the GOP’s new solutions to the nation’s economic woes, we hope their next big idea at least involves less potential for personal injury.

Former President Bill Clinton addressed one of the most pressing issues facing the electorate in a speech on Wednesday. 

The issue is the very ability of that electorate to cast ballots. 

From Politico’s Darren Samuelsohn: 

“I can’t help thinking since we just celebrated the Fourth of July and we’re supposed to be a country dedicated to liberty that one of the most pervasive political movements going on outside Washington today is the disciplined, passionate, determined effort of Republican governors and legislators to keep most of you from voting next time,” Clinton said at Campus Progress’s annual conference in Washington. 

“There has never been in my lifetime, since we got rid of the poll tax and all the Jim Crow burdens on voting, the determined effort to limit the franchise that we see today,” Clinton added. 

President Clinton’s assertions regarding new restrictive voting measures in states across the country are bold, even jarring, but succeed in spotlighting this critical issue. 

He specifically called out Republican proposals in Florida, Ohio, and New Hampshire that restrict ballot box access in various ways. 

In Florida, the new voting restrictions cover both casting and registering to cast ballots. Not only will all organizations that wish to conduct voter registration drives (such as the League of Women Voters) be required to register with the state elections board, but also each person who registers voters will be required to sign and file an oath with the board. Additionally, the early voting period is reduced from 12 days to eight. Frank Cerabino of the Palm Beach Post makes an interesting observation about that part of the law:

On line 2409 of the legislation, the part that establishes the time period of early voting, it had been law that in elections with federal races, the early voting period was to end on the "2nd day before an election."

The new law changes that to the third day before the election.

What possible difference could that one day make?

Well, the second day before an election is a Sunday. And those who have been combing over the Florida results during the last presidential election discovered that nearly a third of all the early voters on that final Sunday were black.

In Ohio, legislation passed just last week by the GOP-controlled legislature will effectively reduce voters’ access to the ballot box. As we previously noted, restrictive provisions of this bill include:

• Cuts the early voting period by more than half: instead of 35 days, voters will only be able to cast ballots on 12 of the 17 days prior to the election
• Eliminates early voting on Sundays
• Permits early voting on Saturdays from only 8 a.m. to noon
• Cuts early voting by mail from 35 days to 21
• Eliminates the weeklong period during which voters could register and cast ballots at the same time (“Golden Week”)
• Prohibits boards of elections from mailing absentee ballot forms without receiving specific requests (forms are currently mailed to all registered voters)
• Prohibits boards of elections from paying return postage to encourage completion of absentee voter forms
• Eliminates local control, preventing boards of elections from adjusting poll hours and taking other previously permissible measures to prevent long lines and other issues seen in the 2004 elections 

The New Hampshire bill, which was vetoed by the Governor but may still be overridden by the heavily GOP-controlled legislature, requires voters to present state or federal government-issued photo identification before casting a ballot.

President Clinton surely faced time constraints, but his list of states with GOP legislatures pushing regressive voting legislation could have extended far beyond those three.

Maine’s Republican-controlled statehouse revoked the state’s long-standing policy to allow eligible voters to register at the polls on Election Day before casting ballots.

In Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker and the state GOP slammed a voter ID bill through the legislature this spring in a desperate attempt to move the goalposts for the upcoming recall elections.

In North Carolina, the Governor vetoed a voter ID bill that would have cost state taxpayers $1.4 million and could have disenfranchised the 147,100 active black voters in the state who do not have photo ID.

In Pennsylvania, the GOP-controlled House has passed legislation requiring presentation of government-issued photo ID to vote. If it passes the Republican Senate, the Republican Governor is almost certain to sign it.

In Missouri, the Governor vetoed the voter ID bill passed by the Republican-controlled legislature. So the state GOP bypassed her by approving an amendment to the state constitution that would have the same effect. The amendment is slated to appear on the ballot for Missouri voters’ approval this fall.

The Brennan Center for Justice found in a 2006 study that 11% of U.S. citizens do not possess any form of government-issued photo ID. Civil rights groups assert that minority and low-income voters constitute an outsized portion of that group and would inevitably be disenfranchised by these voter ID laws.

Add that to the reduction of the time available to cast ballots states like Florida and Ohio, and we could be looking at a presidential electorate in 2012 that’s missing large chunks of what made Barack Obama’s victory possible in 2008—not to mention the inevitable effects of voter suppression all the way down the ballot.

President Clinton has sounded the alarm on a critical issue. Republicans’ only defense seems to be raising the specter of virtually nonexistent voter fraud and “illegal voting.”

Actually, until recently it was illegal to make voting more difficult for eligible citizens.

Republicans in state legislatures around the country are rewriting voting laws to make exercising one’s right to cast a ballot more difficult. 

After examining the plethora of bills introduced in statehouses this year that, among other things, would reduce poll hours and require voters to show photo ID, it seems clear that Republicans are trying to make it harder for certain groups to vote. The Advancement Project, an advocacy group of civil rights attorneys, called the push “the largest legislative effort to scale back voting rights in a century.”

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), Republican legislators have introduced bills that would diminish access to the voting booth in over 40 states.* All of these Republican proposals focus on one apparent goal: restrict ballot access and shrink the electorate—often in ways that would decrease Democratic votes.

Many of the proposals are in the form of voter ID legislation, which would require potential voters to present specified forms of identification in order to cast a ballot. Republicans supporting these measures claim they’re necessary to prevent “voter fraud.”

Too bad that “voter fraud” isn’t a problem that actually exists. In New Hampshire, investigations conducted since 2004 revealed no cases of voter fraud. In South Carolina, where a voter ID bill that would become among the most stringent in the country is currently under consideration, the state Elections Commission knows of no confirmed cases of voter fraud. An elections supervisor in Florida says “there’s no evidence of a problem, none whatever.” Voter impersonation is the only type of voter fraud addressed by laws requiring presentation of a photo ID to vote, and repeated studies have confirmed this crime to be extremely rare.

Speaking of study results, here are some fun facts about groups included in the 11 percent of Americans without a current government-issued photo ID: 

• 25 percentof African American voting age citizens

• 15 percent of those earning less than $35,000 a year

• 18 percent of those age 65 and above

• 20 percent of young voters 18-29

In sum, GOP legislators may be using baseless allegations of fraud to make voting more difficult for constituencies not known for their reliable GOP vote.

The broad GOP voter discouragement push goes beyond voter ID bills.  Florida provides an example of one of the most restrictive proposals in the country.

Florida House Bill 1355 (and companion Senate Bill 2086) recently passed both GOP-controlled chambers and includes the following provisions: 

• Forces anyone updating his or her name or address on election day to fill out a provisional ballot (which often go uncounted). Since 1973, Florida voters have been able to update name or address without major issues.
• Forces any group running a registration drive to fill out paperwork for every volunteer and paid worker with the state.
• Halves the time that citizens would have to collect signatures to get an initiative on a ballot.
• The senate version of the bill (SB 2086) also reduces the early voting period from two weeks to just one week.

Indeed, reducing the length of early voting periods is a restrictive voting measure Republicans are advocating in several states. In North Carolina, for example, a GOP-sponsored bill would cut the 16-day early voting period by an entire week. 

In both Florida and North Carolina (as well as in almost every other state with early voting) the majority of early voters in 2008 voted for President Obama.  

Another strain of restrictive measures popping up in several states involves hobbling voter registration and mobilization efforts. The North Carolina bill would prevent anyone from engaging in get-out-the-vote efforts outside of his or her own voting precinct. Legislation in Maine would end the long-standing practice of election day voter registration. The Florida bill mentioned above will prompt the League of Women Voters to end their registration efforts in that state.

This apparently concerted effort on the part of Republicans in state legislatures nationwide to effectively suppress voting is as disturbing as it is un-democratic. Additionally, these restrictive measures often are costly and do nothing to balance state budgets and create jobs, which are the top priorities for voters across the country right now.

To be fair, Republican legislators in some states are working to promote voting rights among some groups: hunters and fishers.

*Research compiled by DLCC.

This morning, Politico caught two conservative groups doing a little bit of sharing. 

Anti-union ads share a fake teacher: Earnest, soft-focus anti-union ads in Florida and Wisconsin use the same image of a teacher in a classroom to make the case for more flexible labor contracts-- appearing to claim in each case that the stock-footage actress is a real teacher in the state in question.

One ad targets a Democratic state senator in Wisconsin for standing up to Gov. Scott Walker’s extreme anti-worker agenda. The other supports anti-union “paycheck protection” legislation in Florida. The ads essentially claim that right-wing union-busting agenda items somehow support teachers. Both ads are paid for by conservative groups and contain images of the same file footage actress in a classroom. 

Conservatives continue to insult educators and middle-class families by recycling fake teachers to push their extreme agendas.

These shameful ads only demonstrate that these groups don't know, understand, or respect either teachers or working families’ values.

The GOP’s war on workers has dominated recent national media coverage, with two states in particular getting most of the attention. Unfortunately, this means that some other truly loony Republican actions didn't receive the attention they deserved.

So we’re taking a moment today to revisit some of the things you may have missed in the last few weeks.

The New Hampshire House is quickly gaining a reputation as the nation’s Petri dish for right-wing buffoonery. We’ve already discussed recent GOP efforts there to abolish universal kindergarten, declare technology training irrelevant to an adequate education, and block U.S. efforts to combat piracy. But did you know that GOP state Representatives have also proposed ordering TSA agents to register as sex offenders (he calls it the “Don’t Touch My Junk” bill) and shipping the mentally ill to Siberia?

The latter idea, proposed by GOP state Rep. Martin Harty, prompted Harty to resign a few days later (not out of shame, according to him, but because "So far I really don't know what I'm doing" - a mystery most of New Hampshire still grapples with). Amazingly, GOP Speaker Bill O’Brien declined to clearly condemn Harty. Instead he simply said that Harty "has earned the right to say what he thinks."

Meanwhile, at the other extreme, New Hampshire state Rep. Kenneth Weyler implied during a committee hearing that mental illness was no more than an elaborate racket, and that “by cutting the amount of help we're willing to offer, we'd like them to discover that some of these people can be cured.”

Moving on to the Iowa House, GOP state Rep. Chris Hagenow has filed legislation that would allow private security officers (like the ones in shopping malls) to carry “offensive weapons.” Existing Iowa law, in turn, defines “offensive weapons” to include “a bomb, grenade, or mine, any rocket having a propellant charge of more than four ounces, certain rockets, missiles, and other similar devices.” Perhaps Rep. Hagenow thinks mine fields would deter shoplifters.

Or maybe Hagenow was simply panicked by his GOP colleague across the hall in the Iowa Senate, state Sen. Mark Chelgren, who argued that universal preschool was nothing more than a cover for Nazi indoctrination sessions (audio here).

Continuing the theme of compassion for children, Maine Republicans are picking up an idea first proposed by Missouri GOP state Sen. Jane Cunningham, who tried to repeal most child labor laws in that state. Similar legislation has now been filed in both the Maine House and Maine Senate.

In the Kansas House, GOP state Rep. Connie O’Brien first said she could determine if people were illegal immigrants or not based on whether they “had the olive complexion.” A few weeks later, GOP Rep. Virgil Peck suggested that shooting illegal immigrants from helicopters would be an effective policy.

Georgia state Rep. Bobby Franklin, who last made headlines for trying to label rape victims as "accusers" in all Georgia court proceedings, is back in the news after he compared the United States to the oppressive regimes in Egypt and Libya, declaring that “Americans are the most delusional people in the world.”

And speaking of GOP efforts to blame the victim in rape cases, debate over a school dress code bill in the Florida House was marred by GOP state Rep. Kathleen Passidomo, who spoke in favor of the bill because “There was an article about an 11 year old girl who was gangraped in Texas by 18 young men because she was dressed up like a 21-year-old prostitute.”

A bill in the Montana House would have eliminated all educational requirements for the State Superintendent of Instruction – an elected position. Forty-six House Republicans apparently thought that was a great idea, because why would we want the person responsible for education to be, you know, educated?

And finally, Arizona Senate Majority Leader Scott Bundgaard recently invoked his state constitution’s legislative immunity clause to avoid a domestic violence charge after he was accused of hitting his girlfriend on the side of the road. Amazingly, now that Bundgaard has used the loophole himself to avoid the charges, he wants to repeal it so no one else can follow his example.

[hat tips: Blue Hampshire, Dirigo Blue, Montana Cowgirl Blog, Under the Golden Dome, and Think Progress]

It isn’t always about majorities.

Even with Florida Republicans defending 25 open State House seats this fall (compared to the Democrats’ 3 open seats), strategists on both sides will admit that overtaking the GOP’s 74-44 House advantage or 26-13 Senate advantage would be a tall order even in a Democratic-leaning year.

But as the South Florida Sun-Sentinel’s Josh Hafenbrack explains, Florida Democrats are in an excellent position to achieve two other crucial goals this year. On the one hand, gaining just five of those open seats would deny the Republicans the ability to pass state constitutional amendments at will (a power they’ve enjoyed since 1998).

On the other hand, simply holding their current number of seats would deny Republicans the 2/3 majority they’ll need to override a (hopefully) Democratic gubernatorial veto. Hafenbrack describes what that unchecked GOP power would mean for Floridians:

The result, for Floridians, is likely to be statehouse politics that the Tea Party can love. Expect renewed legislative efforts to dismantle teacher tenure and mandate ultrasounds for women seeking abortions, proposals vetoed by newly independent Gov. Charlie Crist this year.

And, of course, a 2/3 Republican majority in the legislature would leave a Democratic governor with no leverage whatsoever to influence the congressional redistricting process in one of the most gerrymandered states in the country. George Bush won twice as many of Florida’s congressional districts as either Al Gore or John Kerry (winning 17-8 in 2000 and 18-7 in 2004), and even John McCain, who lost Florida by nearly 3% statewide, still won more congressional districts than President Obama (a 15-10 advantage).

Even if Democrats win back the governorship this year, unpacking that gerrymander depends on holding our ground in the state legislature or advancing by just a few seats.

The very moment Democratic State Senator Dan Gelber was giving a speech about why he felt a proposed bill “disrespects too many women in the state of Florida,” Republican Sen. Mike Bennett was caught on camera viewing nude pictures from his state-issued computer.

Sunshine State News has the details (and the video):

Senate spokesperson Jaryn Emhof explained further on Bennett's behalf.

"There was some confusion about an email he received," said Emhof. "He thought it was an email about an item being debated on the Senate floor. As soon as he realized it wasn't he closed the page."

But the one image we caught on camera wasn't the only thing Bennett had viewed. It appears other files, including at least two videos, may have been downloaded, too. He was also caught on camera watching a video of a dog running out of the water and shaking itself off. It is unclear if he also thought that was an email about a bill being debated on the floor.

Needless to say, Bennett later refused to provide an email record proving that the nude photo came in a message with a government-related subject line.

When asked by the news organization why he was watching dog videos and looking at the racy photo during a floor debate, Bennett explained “I was just sitting there, bored…”

We’re very sorry that Sen. Bennett finds his job so boring, but unfortunately for the people of Florida, he’s stuck with it until his seat is up for election in 2012.

At at time when states are doing all they can to try to attract new industries, many policymakers are looking to the film industry as a potential force for job creation. States across the country are attempting to lure film and television production with a mix of tax cuts and other promotions.

But Florida Republicans have potentially handicapped the economic stimulus of their program with a heavy dose of conservative censorship:

Movies and TV shows with gay characters could be ineligible for a "family-friendly" tax credit in Florida under a little-noticed provision tucked into a $75 million incentive package that Republican House leaders hope will attract film and entertainment jobs to the state.

The bill would prohibit productions with "nontraditional family values" from receiving a so-called family-friendly tax credit. But it doesn't define what "nontraditional family values" are, something the bill's sponsor had a hard time doing, too.

"Think of it as like Mayberry," state Rep. Stephen Precourt, R-Orlando, said, referring to The Andy Griffith Show. "That's when I grew up — the '60s. That's what life was like. I want Florida to be known for making those kinds of movies: Disney movies for kids and all that stuff. Like it used to be, you know?"

Much of the concern for language stems from the fact that no one knows exactly what it means.

When specifically asked about potential state money for a television show with gay characters, Precourt told reporters, "That would not be the kind of thing I'd say that we want to invest public dollars in."

But other policymakers refused to go that far, and some weren't prepared to offer a definition at all.

Already members of the Florida Senate are indicating that they will not take up the 'nontraditional family values' language, leaving the proposal's future in doubt.