Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation Monday allowing the state to designate groups as domestic terrorist organizations, backing up his December executive order that placed that label on two Islamic groups. The law, HB 1471, takes effect July 1 and was signed at the University of South Florida’s Gibbons Alumni Center in Tampa. The Republican-controlled Legislature approved the proposal by votes of 80-25 in the House and 25-11 in the Senate.
“The legislation we’ll sign today is the strongest action Florida has ever taken to protect its people from this influence,” DeSantis said during the bill signing event. “And obviously, it spans finance, it spans political, it spans culture.” The law bars courts or other adjudicatory bodies from enforcing any provision of religious or foreign law, with an emphasis against the Islamic code known as Sharia law.
The legislation allows the state’s Chief of Domestic Security, currently Florida Department of Law Enforcement Commissioner Mark Glass, to designate a domestic or foreign terrorist organization. The Governor and the Cabinet would approve the designation. Rep. Hillary Cassel, R-Dania Beach, sponsored the measure, which was filed in support of DeSantis’ executive order classifying the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, and the Muslim Brotherhood as terrorist organizations.
“This is not just about CAIR. This expanded and deeply flawed framework can attack any organization that dares to dissent,” said CAIR-Florida Executive Director Hiba Rahim in a statement Monday. “As Floridians, together, we’ll watch how this unprecedented law is enforced, and whether it is used or abused.” Rahim criticized the legislation as advancing “a political agenda” and said the law jeopardizes student speech, freedom of religion, and due process.
In March, U.S. District Judge Mark Walker issued a preliminary injunction against DeSantis’ December executive order, writing that it violated CAIR’s rights by targeting and threatening those providing the organization with material support. Southern Poverty Law Center Deputy Legal Director Scott McCoy addressed the case at that time, saying, “The First Amendment protects your right to speak and to speak your opinions, regardless of whether or not someone finds them wrong or disagrees with them.”
DeSantis acknowledged that Sharia law isn’t practiced in Florida courts but said the new state law is intended to get ahead of its “creep into different institutions.” “What I see happening in Europe, I see a migration not to assimilate, but to displace the current cultures that are there,” DeSantis said. “We obviously are not going to allow that to happen here in the state of Florida.”
The measure outlines rules for expelling students at state universities who “promote” support for designated terrorist organizations. If a student’s actions can be “reasonably interpreted” as an actual threat of violence, disrupt the learning environment, infringe upon the rights of others, or offer “material support for or the recruitment of members for such an organization,” they can be expelled under the new law. “This will help the state of Florida protect you. It will help us protect your tax dollars,” DeSantis said.
Other provisions bar schools affiliated with designated terrorist organizations from receiving state K-12 scholarship program money. Public universities and colleges are prohibited from spending state or federal funds to support programs or campus activities that promote a designated terrorist organization. Democrats raised concerns during legislative debate that the bill and a related public records exemption, HB 1473, would deprive any group hit with the terrorist label of due process by blocking documents showing how a designation is reached.
Opponents expressed concerns over whether people, especially students on college campuses, could inadvertently be accused of being members of a designated domestic terrorist organization and suffer consequences without a conviction. The law takes effect July 1, when the state’s new designation process will become operational.