Indiana’s House of Representatives on Monday approved a bill that would require all welfare recipients to undergo drug testing, despite the fact that several courts have ruled such measures are unconstitutional. Public assistance would be denied to any applicant who refused to undergo rehabilitation treatment.

The bill would require recipients of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) who tests positive for illegal substances to pay for their own drug tests out of their assistance checks. It would also force anyone with drugs in their system to enroll in a treatment program, but the bill offers no additional funding for such programs:

If the individual tests positive on a drug test administered under this chapter, the amount of the cost of any subsequent drug test the individual is required to undergo will be withheld from the TANF assistance the individual receives, if the individual continues to receive TANF assistance, regardless of whether the individual tests positive or tests negative on the subsequent drug test.

In 2011, Indiana approved a similar requirement for people to apply for unemployment insurance, and just one percent of applicants failed. Similar numbers have come from Republican-led drug testing efforts in Florida.

What’s more, it’s not likely that such requirements actually save the state any money.

Hans von Spakovsky may be America’s top expert on voter disenfranchisement. How to foster voter disenfranchisement, that is. As an official in the Bush Justice Department, Spakovsky pushed through gerrymandered maps benefiting Republicans, and was a driving force behind the effort to approve voter ID laws — a common voter suppression law targeting student, minority and low-income voters. Since leaving the Bush Administration, Spakovsky’s remained a leading advocate of voter suppression, often making odd claims such as arguing that a common method of disenfranchising voters actually does those voters a favor, or claiming that Attorney General Eric Holder sides with big scary black men who tamper with elections.

For the rest of this month, Spakovsky is also an elections official in Fairfax County, Virginia. In Virginia political parties control individual seats on county election boards. Both the Democratic and Republican party get to nominate three people to each of their controlled seats, but the judges in charge of selecting from among these nominees almost always take each party’s first choice. In Fairfax, the top choice of each party was selected every time a seat needed to be filled for the last 50 years.

That changed late last week, however, when judges in Fairfax Country refused to reappoint Spakovsky to the county election board he currently serves on. Although the judges who effectively removed Spakovsky did not comment on their motivation, their decision likely was informed by a letter from the Fairfax County Democratic Committee arguing that Spakovsky used his seat on the board to continue his crusade against voting rights, such as refusing to allow voter materials to be distributed in languages other than English. Spakovsky’s term expires at the end of this month.

New York Assemblyman Dov Hikind (D) claims that it “never crossed his mind” why someone would be offended by the fact that he wore blackface, an Afro wig and a basketball jersey during a costume party he hosted to celebrate the Jewish holiday of Purim:

Although Hikind claims he meant no offense by wearing the racist costume, he also says he does not regret wearing it.

In 2011, a Reagan-appointed federal judge handed down a “Citizens United on steroids” decision, declaring that corporations had the right to give unlimited amounts of money directly to political candidates — rather than simply to outside groups such as super PACs. The decision was eventually reversed by a unanimous panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, and a petition to hear the case was pending before the Supreme Court. Earlier today, the Supreme Court denied that petition, putting the issue to bed for the time being.

The importance of this development should not be overstated. When the Supreme Court decides not to hear a case, that means only that there were not four justices interested in hearing that matter at that particular moment in time. It neither sets a new precedent nor is necessarily a window into how the justices would handle a future case that presents the same issue. Nevertheless, the Court’s decision not to hear this particular lawsuit is a hopeful sign that there is a cap on how far the five conservative justices currently want to push their crusade against campaign finance laws.

Last week, the justices announced that they would hear a similar case challenging the $123,200 cap on total contributions by wealthy individuals to candidates, political party committees and similar organizations during the current election cycle. It should be noted, however, that this case came up to the Court through an unusual process that prevents them from turning away cases they don’t want to hear. The Citizens United on steroids case, by contrast, came up through the normal process and thus would be turned away if less than four justices wanted to hear it.

The Federal Election Commission deadlocked along party lines on whether to hold accountable a Republican contractor who blatantly circumvented campaign finance limits. While the three Democratic commissioners agreed that William A. “Aaron” Bennett had willfully violated federal election law by offering to reimburse friends if they donated to Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA), the three FEC Republicans blocked the determination and allowed Bennett to escape with a mere $4,000 fine and a warning.

Bennett admitted that after making the legal maximum contribution to Scalise’s re-election campaign in 2007, he asked three other people to contribute $2,300 each to the campaign — and reimbursed them for the $6,900 they spent.

According to the Statement of Reasons by the three Democratic FEC appointees (Chair Ellen Weintraub, Cynthia Bauerly, and Steven Walther), there was clear evidence both that Bennett circumvented federal contribution limits and did so knowing full well that doing so was illegal:

According to one of the reimbursed individuals — an employee working for Bennett — Bennett stated “that he was at the maximum individual contribution [limit]” and that “he would reimburse each [individual] for the contribution.” … Based on these statements and the fact that Bennett was an experienced donor, there is reason to believe that Bennett knew that he was subject to a contribution limit and that he made an intentional attempt to evade that limit by making a contribution in another person’s name. Taken together, the facts are more than sufficient for the Commission to have found reason to believe that Bennett both knowingly and willfully made excessive contributions and knowingly and willfully made contributions in the names of other individuals.

Bennett’s political giving goes back at least to 2005, when he gave a $1,000 donation to then-Rep. Bobby Jindal (R-LA).

Despite this evidence, the three Republicans rejected the finding that the violation was “willful.” The Commission then voted, five to one, to accept a conciliation agreement that allowed Bennett to escape with a small fine.

Bennett and his family contracting business, Benetech LLC, also have come under fire for allegedly receiving improper contracts set-aside for disabled veterans and for bribing a sheriff. The New Orleans Times-Pacayune editorial board called Aaron Bennett a “crooked contractor.”

The six-person Federal Election Commission — evenly divided by law — has been largely paralyzed by three Republicans who oppose campaign finance regulation. Since the vote, Democratic Commissioner Bauerly stepped down from the commission, leaving just two Democratic commissioners. Four votes are required for any Commission action.

In the face of obstacles to marijuana research from both the Drug Enforcement Administration and the National Institute on Drug Abuse, a theoretical physicist at the California Institute of Technology and one-time MacArthur Fellow is calling out the federal government on its obstruction of science.

During an address before a medical marijuana conference Friday, John H. Schwarz explained how the DEA and NIDA act as a “tag team” to censor science, with NIDA holding a monopoly over legal access to cannabis for research, and the DEA refusing to reconsider the drug’s designation in the Controlled Substances Act as a dangerous substance with no medical value on the basis that sufficient research does not exist. He alleges that the government has blocked research even though it has long been aware of marijuana’s potential to serve many medical benefits including shrink aggressive cancer cells is because it might “send the wrong message to children”:

The most blatant example of this behavior came last year, when NIDA blocked an FDA-approved clinical trial testing marijuana as a remedy for post traumatic stress disorder, PTSD. It’s especially sad to note that the study participants were veterans, with PTSD deemed untreatable by other means. After 12 years of war, this is how we treat them. […]

As a physicist, I can assure you that this not how physics works. … We are all expected to act like grownups and accept it gracefully as experiments prove our favorite theories are false. In physics, unlike marijuana policy, we consider the right message to send to be the message that’s true. […]

Consider what American science might look like if all research were run like marijuana research is being run now. Suppose the Institute for Creation Science were put in charge of approving paleontology digs and the science of human evolution. Imagine what would happen to the environment if we gave coal and oil companies the power to block any climate research they didn’t like.

Of course, as Schwarz acknowledges, interest groups such as coal and oil companies often do have a significant influence over policy decisions, regardless of the underlying science. Even blocking research outright — a much less common tactic — is not unique to marijuana. The NRA has had tremendous success, for example, in blocking gun violence prevention research. It remains, however, a uniquely insidious tactic that Schwartz says harkens back to the era of witch hunts. And as Schwartz points out, organizations tasked with “drug enforcement” and battling “drug abuse” are not well-positioned to remain neutral on the best way to handle drug policy. A bill introduced by Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) would take federal oversight of marijuana research out of the hands of NIDA.

Like many marijuana advocates, Schwarz has a family member whose life was altered by medical marijuana. His wife, Patricia, resorted to remedies as extreme as electric shock before turning to marijuana to treat her chronic bladder inflammation — the only remedy that worked.

“After a few months of using it,” around the time of the passage of Proposition 215′s passage in California 16 years ago, he said, ”her bladder function returned to normal and so did our lives, except for one thing: we were now facing the wrath of the most powerful government in the world.” And they still are.

INDIANOLA, Iowa — Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) is the latest Republican considering legislation to strengthen gun laws, despite his history of opposition to gun regulations.

In a handful of town halls throughout southern Iowa this week, Grassley was repeatedly asked his views on stronger gun laws. He made clear that he would oppose an assault weapons ban, but said he’d consider legislation on extended magazine clips and universal background checks.

“I’m going to see what the language of the amendment is,” Grassley told a constituent on Wednesday in Indianola when asked about a poll showing 88 percent of Iowans supporting universal background checks. He noted that although he’d opposed universal background checks in the past, he would consider such legislation this time around:

CONSTITUENT: I’m a pastor in the a church here in town, Crossroads United Church of Christ. We are very concerned about gun violence as you may have gathered. The Des Moines Register poll said that 88 percent of Iowans support background checks on gun buyers. Would you support that since 88 percent of your constituents do?

GRASSLEY: I’ve answered other people this way so I’m going to answer you the same way. I’m going to see what the language of the amendment is. I can tell you I didn’t support it 10 years ago when it was up, but if I did support anything, it would not go as far as a father giving his son a gun or something like that. I think that it can get a little ridiculous depending on what you do.

Watch it:

Grassley’s support for stronger gun legislation would be significant. He has received an “A” rating from the National Rifle Association, as well as more than $40,000 in campaign contributions from the organization. He’s also been a consistent opponent of strengthening America’s gun laws, including the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban.

Still, many critics would justifiably be once bitten, twice shy when it comes to Grassley’s “openness” to progressive legislation. During the Obamacare debate, Grassley led many Democrats to believe his was a gettable vote, only to then dismiss the legislation and accuse Democrats of wanting to “pull the plug on grandma.”

On Saturday, Republicans at the Michigan GOP’s convention in Lansing voted by an overwhelming 1,370-132 margin to back a plan that would “divvy-up 14 of the state’s 16 electoral votes according to which candidate got the most votes in each congressional district.” This is one of two election-rigging plans favored by Republicans in several key blue states because it would effectively give away much of the state’s electors to the Republican candidate. Because this particular plan lays the presidential election onto Congressional maps that are already gerrymandered to benefit Republicans, it would achieve the absurd result of virtually guaranteeing Republicans will win the majority of the electoral votes in Michigan, even though the Democratic candidate is likely to win the state as a whole:

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) reiterated to his fellow Republicans gathered in Lansing that he does not believe this is “the appropriate time” to discuss rigging future presidential elections. But this assurance should be cold comfort to supporters of democracy. Snyder similarly once claimed that pushing a so-called “right-to-work” law would not be “appropriate in Michigan during 2012.” He then signed the very same anti-worker legislation he’d called inappropriate for 2012 in December of 2012.