Chandler v. Miller

In 1990, the state of Georgia enacted a statute that required every candidate for a designated state office to submit to a urinalysis drug test. Thus, Georgia became the first and only state that required drug screening for state office nominees. Test results had to be negative and verified by a state approved laboratory at least 30 days before balloting for nomination or election to state offices. (Candidates could choose whether to be tested in a laboratory approved by the state or by their own physician.)

Libertarian Party nominee for the office of lieutenant governor, Walker L. Chandler, and two other nominees of the Libertarian Party, believed that their constitutional right to privacy would be violated. They sought protection from what they felt constituted an unreasonable search. The action, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia claimed the "creators" of the statute inappropriately used state power under the U.S. Constitution's Tenth Amendment to enact their statute. Because the petitioners felt that their rights had been constitutionally violated, they requested declaratory and injunctive relief barring implementation and enforcement of the act. The district court, however, refused their request to obtain a preliminary injunction; final judgment of the district court was also delayed until after the election. When the court ultimately rendered its decision, the Georgia statute was upheld.

Chandler appealed the ruling to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals; however, the court affirmed. (Interestingly, the circuit court cited as justification for its ruling the same three cases that the U.S. Supreme Court would claim as precedence which rendered the Georgia statute as unconstitutional.) The court's opinion stated that although drug testing qualified as a search, the state had compelling reason to have nominees for state office submit to drug testing. The circuit panel further reasoned that the import of administrative and policy decision-making in which elected officials engaged rendered the state's rationale as valid. Moreover, the state's "special needs" went beyond the limits of normal law enforcement and so a warrant or reasonable suspicion was not necessarily incident to the "search" (drug tests). Finally, being permitted to take tests in the office of their private physician, nominees could simply forfeit their candidacy if they tested positive; thus, the court felt that there existed no potential that an individual's privacy might be violated. The Eleventh Circuit Court ultimately ruled that the Georgia statute was constitutionally valid because the state's interests outweighed individual expectations of privacy.