There’s a proposal floating around–at the state level–to drug test candidates for public office. I say, this is long overdue. From WLTX (South Carolina):
People filing for public office would also have to submit to drug testing under a proposal pitched by a state senator.
Senate Republican Leader Harvey Peeler filed his bill a day after news broke that former state Treasurer Thomas Ravenel had been indicted on a federal cocaine conspiracy charge.
The June indictment came just six months after the Republican Charleston real estate developer took office.
Ravenel pleaded guilty in September to conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute cocaine and faces up to 20 years in prison. But his plea agreement calls for a reduced sentence because Ravenel has helped prosecutors with their investigation.
The way I see it, if people have to take drug tests to get hired in fields with far less responsibility than public office, it is hypocritical not to require elected officials to pee into cups along with the rest of us. I’d make this mandatory for all elected offices, particularly at the national level. If I had to pass a drug test to get a job giving people directions to the bathrooms and buses at the Trump Taj Mahal, it’s unfathomable that the person who has their finger on the nuclear button doesn’t.
But I wouldn’t stop there. Many jobs require applicants to take a battery of aptitude and personality tests. I say candidates should have to do this as a sort of truth in advertising. You say you’ve got the smarts to engineer a better tomorrow for America? Well, the voters have a right to see what they’re working with.
The danger, I think, is that candidates would sandbag the intelligence tests, knowing that nobody like a know-it-all and hoping that they could get elected simply on their earnest, aw-shucks enthusiasm. Still, at least we’d have something to go on instead of soundbites.