TRUG-TEST PROPOSAL NEEDS TO DIE

The Lafourche Parish Council last week soundly defeated a resolution
encouraging random drug testing of school employees.

That's good.

What isn't so good is that Councilman Lindel Toups has promised to
revive the proposal and make it even broader.

The intentions behind Toups' idea is laudable. We don't want users of
illegal drugs educating our children. But interference in the
education process -- even through well-meaning resolutions -- isn't a
proper activity for the Parish Council, which has more-important
issues on its legislative plate.

The parish School Board, the state Board of Elementary and Secondary
Education and the state Legislature can see to the educational needs
of our children, including the requirements placed on our educators.

But Toups' defeat didn't deter his efforts. If anything, it seems to
have emboldened him.

He said at the Nov. 11 meeting that he plans to return to the council
with a plan to require drug testing of everyone who receives public
money in the form of welfare, Social Security or disability.

At least one other council member -- Phillip Gouaux -- has said he
will support the latest idea, saying that it is fine because it
doesn't single out any particular group.

Again, the desire to rid our communities of illegal drugs is
admirable. But that is simply not a legitimate funcion of the Parish
Council.

This is not the first time Toups' legislative goals have run afoul of
common sense.

Over the objections of law-enforcement professionals, the council in
2007 passed an ordinance Toups sponsored that outlawed saggy pants.
To this date, there has been no citation issued for the defense
because, as the council was warned before it passed the ordinance, it is
unconstitutional and unenforceable.

That also is the case with this most-recent measure. The council
can't demand drug testing of people who receive money from the
federal government. So it has no business spending the public's time
on this issue.

Toups said the school-employee proposal was simply an effort to
express support for a drug-testing initiative in the Louisiana
Legislature. Perhaps there is a similar federal rule being debated
for recipients of public money.

The fact, though, is that there are real problems -- flooding,
drainage, housing, planning, coastal restoration -- that are
competing for the attention of the council and other local entities.

The Parish Council doesn't have the extra time needed to attack
issues that clearly lie outside its realm of influence.

We hope Toups will turn his creative energies from matters that are
best addressed by other levels of government to those that directly
affect the people he represents and come under the authority of the
body on which he serves.

He clearly has good intentions. But governance is more about the
ability to get things done than the expression of good intentions --
which are fine in limited supply. He has used up more than his share.