Illinois representative Bill Mitchell (R-Forsyth) has introduced HB 1402, to require candidates for the legislature to submit, along with their ballot access petition, the results of a “substance abuse test”. The test must have taken place within the 60 days before the petition is submitted. Mitchell is not a neophyte state legislator; he was first elected to the Illinois legislature in 1998.

In 1997, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 8-1 that states cannot require candidates for public office to pass a drug test. That case was Chandler v Miller, 520 U.S. 305.