Libertarians win 8to1 Supreme Court victory
in Walker Chandler candidate drugtesting case

WASHINGTON, DC "A victory for the Bill of Rights and a
defeat for the War on Drugs" that's how the Libertarian Party
characterized today's 8to1 Supreme Court decision that declared
unconstitutional a Georgia state law mandating drug tests for political
candidates.

"This decision is a small step towards sanity in a nation that
is rapidly being stripped of its basic civil liberties," said the
party's national director, Perry Willis. "The Supreme Court has finally
put a limit on what the government can do in the name of winning the
War on Drugs."

The case was especially important to Libertarians because the
plaintiff, Walker Chandler, challenged the Georgia law after he ran for
lieutenant governor as a Libertarian Party candidate in 1994
starting a threeyear legal odyssey that led him all the way to the
nation's highest court.

Today, a jubilant Chandler said, "It's a wonderful day when the
Supreme Court puts limitations on the excesses of government."

Speaking on behalf of the Libertarian Party, Willis agreed.
"It's a great day for Libertarians and a great day for any American
who cherishes civil liberties," he said.

"Politicians love to use the War on Drugs as an excuse to
repeal civil liberties. But today, the court ruled that there are
limits to how blatantly politicians can violate the Fourth Amendment.
That's why this decision is a victory for the Bill of Rights and a
defeat for the War on Drugs," he said.

The case of Chandler v. Miller has its origins in 1990, when
Georgia passed a oneofakind law requiring all candidates for state
office governor, attorney general, state representatives, and so on
to submit a urine sample that tested negative for drugs before being
allowed on the ballot.

Under protest, Chandler took and passed the drug test, won more
than 47,000 votes as the Libertarian candidate for lieutenant governor
in the 1994 election, and filed a lawsuit questioning the
constitutionality of the law. He started off with two defeats, losing
in district court and in the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

But he didn't give up. After the Supreme Court agreed to hear
his appeal, Chandler argued his own case before the high court on
January 14, 1996, basing his arguments on the Fourth Amendment's
prohibition against "unreasonable" searches.

"Surely there are some limits to suspicionless drug testing,"
said Chandler. "This case may be an opportunity for the Court to
delineate just what those limits might be."

It was. The court, in a lopsided 8to1 decision, ruled that
the Georgia law was in violation of the Fourth Amendment because
candidate drug testing "does not fit within the closely guarded
category of constitutionally permissible suspicionless searches."

Specifically, the court ruled that Georgia failed to prove that
there was any "special need" for drug testing that overrode an
individual's right to privacy, such as a demonstrated drug abuse
problem among the state's elected officials; failed to prove that the
drug tests were a "credible means to deter illicit drug users from
seeking election to state office;" and failed to show that state
officials performed "highrisk, safetysensitive tasks."

The court also rejected Georgia's claim that its drugtesting
law served an important "symbolic" function by demonstrating its
commitment to the struggle against drug abuse.

"However wellmeant, the candidate drug test Georgia has
devised diminishes personal privacy for a symbol's sake. The Fourth
Amendment shields society against that state action," wrote Justice
Ruth Bader Ginsburg in the majority decision, which was joined by seven
other justices. Only Chief Justice William Rehnquist dissented.

But does this decision mean that voters have no way to stop
drug addicts from running for public office?

Of course not, said Willis. "All this decision does is return
power to the voters. If voters are genuinely concerned about
drugimpaired candidates, they can simply threaten to withhold their
votes from any candidate who doesn't pass a drug test. Voters have far
more power than any state law they have the power of the ballot
box," he said.

Chandler v. Miller represented not only the Libertarian Party's
first victory before the Supreme Court, but also the first time the
nation's highest court had agreed to hear a case filed by the party.
>From 1975 to 1996, the high court had rejected 15 appeals from the
party, all relating to ballot access and election fairness laws.


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