Coke-Busted GOP Congressman Just Voted to Drug-Test Food Stamp Users [View all]

[kpete]

Trey Radel (R-Fla.), the freshman member of Congress arrested for cocaine possession late last month, backed a GOP plan to make food-stamp recipients pee in cups to prove they were drug-free and hence worthy of eating.

Radel, a noted hip-hop expert and sex-themed web domain-name speculator, allegedly got stung trying to buy bumps of Big C from an undercover DEA agent in DC's tony-ish Dupont Circle. But a month before he sought to ride the white pony with the college kids in Northwest, he was neck-deep in the House's messy debate over whether to continue federal food-stamp benefits to needy families.

That debate culminated in Radel's vote for a bill that would have authorized states to withhold food stamps from applicants who didn't submit to a drug urinalysis. Which is pretty interesting, given that a similar plan in Radel's home state, championed by Florida Gov. Rick Scott, ended up as a disastrous waste of taxpayer money and a violation of impoverished welfare applicants' Fourth Amendment rights.

During Congress' debate over the pee-test amendment, Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) presciently implied that his conservative colleagues were high as hell:

"Why don't we drug test all the members of Congress here," McGovern said shortly before the drug-testing measure passed. "Force everybody to go urinate in a cup or see whether or not anybody is on drugs? Maybe that will explain why some of these amendments are coming up or why some of the votes are turning out the way they are."

But tragically, Radel didn't pay attention, 'cause he was on that dust. (Allegedly.)


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