'It's about vilifying people': Group shames Wisc. GOP with urine sample cups over welfare drug tests

A group of Wisconsin activists delivered urine sample cups to Republican lawmakers on Monday over a plan to drug test welfare recipients.

WMTV followed members of the Wisconsin National Organization for Women (NOW) on Monday as they headed to the Wisconsin State Capitol wearing medical gloves and scrubs, where they delivered a labeled urine cup to the office of every Republican lawmaker.

Wisconsin NOW President Dayna Long said that elected officials needed to understand that drug testing welfare recipients would cause more problems that it would solve.

"First of all, it's a violation to the right to privacy," she explained. "Federal court of appeals has already ruled that it's a violation of the Fourth Amendment."

"This isn't about saving the state money or removing people from welfare, this is about vilifying people who are receiving public assistance," Long added.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R), who proposed the drug tests, recently told WMTV that the plan would be an incentive for welfare recipients to stay clean so that they could get a job.

"To ensure that we're not spending all this time supporting them, getting them to move into the work force and then finding out they can't get hired because they can't pass a drug test," he argued.

But Wisconsin NOW's Long suggested on Monday that the governor was out of touch.

"People don't stay on public assistance because it's fun or because it's glamorous or because they rather have a free ride while they use drugs," she insisted. "They're on public assistance because they're struggling."

Walker has said that he would make welfare drug testing one of his top priorities for this term.

Watch the video below from WMTV, broadcast Jan. 12, 2015.