Some days, it can be lonely being an ACLU lawyer.  That’s particularly true in Florida, where we’ve been challenging a slew of laws that violate Floridians' Fourth Amendment rights to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures.

Tallahassee has become the “Pee” capital of the nation, requiring applicants for temporary government aid, and state employees, to prove that their urine is drug-free. The laws are popular among some legislators because they don't “get” that government is held by the Constitution to a higher standard in protecting citizens' privacy, and that demonizing the financially needy and state workers by treating them like suspected criminals is not only wrong, it’s against the law.

After Florida appealed U.S. District Judge Mary Scriven’s Preliminary Injunction that halted Florida’s dastardly scheme to drug test applicants for Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), four states joined as Amici, or “friends of the court,” to support Florida’s appeal:  Michigan (where a similar statutory scheme was declared unconstitutional over a decade ago), Alabama, Kansas, and Oklahoma.

But Luis Lebron, our client in the TANF suit, also has friends in many places, including in Alabama and Michigan!

Today, under the stewardship of Richard Rosenthal, a Miami appellate lawyer, the National Association of Social Workers, the Center for Law and Social Policy, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Michigan League for Human Services, Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law, and Alabama Arise filed an amicus brief in support of Luis Lebron.

Also filing “friend of the court” briefs on behalf of Luis Lebron are Florida’s Children First and Disability Rights Florida. Also, to be filed later this evening, a brief on behalf of a huge coalition of organizations: the American Academy of Addiction Psychiatry, Physicians and Lawyers for National Drug Policy, the Legal Action Center, Center for Juvenile and Criminal Justice, National Employment Law Project, Child Welfare Organizing Project, National Advocates for Pregnant Women, and the Drug Policy Alliance, authored by David Goldberg of Donahue and Goldberg in New York City.

So today, it’s not so lonely being an ACLU lawyer, even in Florida. We have advocates from across the country standing with us, and we’re grateful to all of them for joining the appeal in the Eleventh Circuit.

Here at the ACLU of Florida, we get no shortage of people who want to tell us that we're destroying America. But it rarely comes from such an unassailable authority as the leader of the Colbert Nation himself, Stephen Colbert.

Our Executive Director Howard Simon was interviewed in the most recent episode of The Colbert Report when, as part of a recurring series on "People Who Are Destroying America," Colbert featured the story of a Florida teacher who was fined $1000 for registering students to vote and not immediately turning the registrations in.

The proponents of the law that she was fined under like to argue that it's about preventing "voter fraud." As Howard explains to Colbert, voter fraud is all-but-imaginary in Florida, and it's just a scary word used to marginalize people. But for pointing that out, well...



The segment is, frankly, hilarious, but it highlights a real and dangerous threat to the bedrock of our democracy - the right to vote.

The high fines for failing to turn in voter registration forms in less than 48 hours was one of many regressive changes to Florida elections law passed by the legislature in what's come to be known as the Voter Suppression Act of 2011. The ACLU of Florida is currently challenging the law in federal court, arguing that the provisions in it that make it harder for Floridians to have their votes counted, harder to cast a ballot, and, as the teacher in the Colbert segment discovered, harder to register to vote.

In fact, within a few hours of the Colbert segment airing, the United States Justice Department filed a report contending that the state had failed prove that the Voter Suppression Act was not a violation of the Voting Rights Act. It's now up to the federal court in the District of Columbia to determine the fate of the Voter Suppression Act.

The teacher in the clip is just one of countless Floridians who will have their right to participate in fair and open elections violated by the Voter Suppression Act. And if challenging that makes us the "People who are Destroying America," then I guess that's what we are. Watch ACLU of Florida Executive Director and "casual man" Howard Simon defending our right to vote on The Colbert Report.

This cartoon helps capture the struggle between Governor Scott and the state of Florida and the ACLU of Florida over drug testing.

The Fourth Amendment protects citizens from being subjected to a government search without reasonable suspicion. It’s one of the core tenets of our justice system.

That’s why the ACLU of Florida has fought so hard to stop the suspicionless drug testing of Floridians being pushed by Governor Scott and the Legislature. In the past year they have passed laws and issued orders that would subject tens of thousands of Floridians to government drug testing.

In late 2011, the ACLU of Florida represented Orlando resident Luis Lebron in a challenge to the state law requiring testing for applications for temporary assistance. Lebron, a Navy veteran, single father, caretaker of his disabled mother, and full-time University of Central Florida, succeeded in getting the law blocked by a federal court in Orlando. Governor Scott has appealed the decision.

Just two weeks ago, the ACLU of Florida went to federal court in Miami on behalf of AFSCME – the state’s largest public employee union – to challenge the Governor’s order requiring suspicionless testing for state workers under his authority. A decision in that challenge is expected at any time.

And in the final days of this Legislative Session, lawmakers are considering yet another attempt to force government drug testing on state workers.

When Floridians are subjected to invasive, stigmatizing government searches, the ACLU of Florida will stand up to protect the rights of people like Luis Lebron, state workers, and everyone else subjected to these unconstitutional policies.