I can't speak to the exact legal background, but this article explains the process well: http://dui.drivinglaws.org/resources/dui-refusal-blood-breat...

From what I've heard in any other state I've lived in (US), it is the same or similar there.

Wow, that's a lot harsher than I was expecting. Suspending someone's license for a year, even if they don't drink, because they refuse a breathalyser? It seems kind of like a 5th and 6th amendment violation.

Judges and juries and awful politicians have been carving out little chunks of those amendments for the past 200 years. There's very little left to chip away.