By his own account, Sen. Craig Blair, R-Berkeley, was the first state lawmaker in the United States to introduce legislation that would mandate drug testing for welfare recipients.
Blair set up a website to push his bill in 2009. His proposal sparked national news attention. Democrats slammed the bill as the "most ridiculous" of that year's legislative session.
"I was called everything ... a racist, which is nonsense," Blair recalled Tuesday during a speech on the West Virginia Senate floor.
Minutes later, senators voted 32-2 to approve legislation (SB 6) that would require drug testing for about 2,000 adults who receive welfare benefits through the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program.
West Virginia could become the 14th state that has some form of drug testing for people on public assistance.
"The taxpayers will appreciate this," Blair said. "We all want to help those who can't help themselves, but we don't want to help those who don't want to help themselves, and this puts a mechanism in place so they can get the help they need."
Republicans have touted the bill as a significant step toward combating West Virginia's substance-abuse problem. They say the legislation is about assisting residents hooked on drugs - not about punishing poor people.
"The motivation behind this legislation is identifying individuals who need help and getting them treatment," said Sen. Ryan Ferns, R-Ohio.
Senate Minority Leader Jeff Kessler, D-Marshall, and Sen. Bill Laird, D-Fayette, voted against the bill Tuesday.
Kessler opposed the legislation because it requires welfare recipients to pay for drug tests, and few can afford to do so, he said.
Laird argued that the state doesn't have a sufficient number of drug treatment programs to help those who test positive.
"I'm absolutely convinced, we do not have the treatment capacity at the local level that can provide the intervention, despite representations otherwise," Laird said. "I know communities that have no such resources."
At a legislative meeting last month, administrators with the state Department of Health and Human Resources told lawmakers that West Virginia has enough treatment programs to handle the 390 or so welfare recipients expected to fail drug screens the first year.
"I'm told there are adequate programs," Ferns said.
Under the bill, those who fail drug tests must complete a substance-abuse treatment program and a job skills class. The state's Medicaid program will pay treatment costs.
A second failed test would prompt a one-year suspension from receiving welfare benefits. A third positive test leads to a lifetime ban.
Under West Virginia's bill, the DHHR must have "reasonable suspicion" that a welfare recipient is abusing drugs before the agency could order a drug test.
Any of three factors would trigger a drug test:
n An applicant shows "qualities indicative of substance abuse."
n A person applying for benefits has a drug-related conviction within the past five years.
n The welfare recipient has a baby who tests positive for controlled substances.
At legislative interim meetings last year, lawmakers learned that few welfare recipients are testing positive for drugs in the states that already have high-cost screening programs.
In December 2014, a federal appeals court upheld a ruling that Florida's drug-testing law is unconstitutional. Florida's program required testing of all public-assistance recipients.
Critics of West Virginia's legislation say drug testing people simply because they're poor is flat-out wrong.
"This bill not only raises serious constitutional concerns, it risks wasting precious taxpayer dollars to address an unsubstantiated problem by implementing a 'solution' that has been shown to increase costs," said Jennifer Meinig, executive director of the ACLU's West Virginia chapter. "Senate Bill 6 subjects Temporary Assistance for Needy Families applicants to invasive drug screening based on the false stereotype that welfare recipients are more likely than others to suffer from substance abuse."
Blair told his fellow lawmakers Tuesday that states with drug-testing laws should be applauded for fending off court challenges and seeing through their programs. "God bless them, for doing that," he said.
The legislation next moves to the House of Delegates.
Reach Eric Eyre at ericeyre@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-4869 or follow @ericeyre on Twitter.