Senators vote to give Florida's governor the power to label 'terrorist' groups

MIAMI — The Florida Senate approved a bill Thursday giving the governor the ability to label groups as “terrorist organizations,” a move that targets college students and Islamic schools that receive state voucher money.

Under HB 1471, college students could be immediately expelled for supporting a group dubbed a terrorist organization — an apparent response to pro-Palestinian protesters who have opposed Israel’s war in Gaza on campuses.

It would also bar courts from considering religious codes, including Islamic Sharia law, in legal cases. Republican lawmakers said Sharia law sometimes comes up in contract and family disputes.

The bill now heads to the House, which has already passed an earlier version. A vote could happen next week, sending the bill to Gov. Ron DeSantis’ desk.

The vote came a day after a federal judge blocked an executive order by DeSantis that labeled the Council on American Islamic Relations a terrorist organization.

U.S. District Judge Mark Walker wrote that DeSantis was using the “bully pulpit” and that CAIR was likely to win the case on free speech grounds.

“The First Amendment bars the Governor from continuing the troubling trend of using an executive office to make a political statement at the expense of others’ constitutional rights,” Walker wrote.

DeSantis issued the executive order in December, after Texas’ governor issued a similar order against the Muslim civil rights and advocacy group. The order also applied to the Muslim Brotherhood, and it barred both organizations from receiving state funds.

The federal government has not deemed the council a terrorist organization. DeSantis’ order did not specify any acts of terrorism the group has allegedly committed.

DeSantis spokesperson Alex Lanfranconi responded to the judge’s move on X by warning that “judicial ethics bars a federal district judge from continuing the troubling trend of using his judicial office to make a political statement at the expense of a party before him.”

HB 1471, passed mostly along party lines, would create a more established process for identifying and labeling “domestic terrorist organizations,” said Sen. Erin Grall, a Vero Beach Republican.

“These are very significant decisions,” Grall said. “But they deserve not to be the topic, like I have said, of a press conference or a press release, but of a process, a deliberative process of consideration of evidence.”

Under the bill, the governor’s chosen head of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement could identify a domestic terrorist organization if it is engaging in “terrorist activity” under state law. State law says the activity must include “a violent act or an act dangerous to human life” or computer hacking crimes.

Neither the organization, nor its members, would have to be charged with a crime before being deemed as a “terrorist” group.

The department would issue written findings and a recommendation to the governor and Cabinet, which would then have to vote on the designation.

Once labeled as a terrorist organization, the group would be allowed to challenge the decision in court.

But college and university students who “promote” the organization would be immediately expelled and assessed out-of-state tuition fees.

And groups and their supporters would be barred from receiving any state funding. That includes institutions receiving school choice scholarship money — a response to reports of Islamic schools receiving vouchers.

The legislation has prompted fierce criticism that it would violate Floridians’ right to free speech. Earlier versions did not define what kind of “support” would be prohibited. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that government can’t stop free expression.

The bill was amended to clarify that student “support” would have to include threats of violence, financial or material support, “substantial disorder” or material distortion of “the orderly learning environment.”

Some senators said they feared the powers would be used against political opponents.

Sen. Ileana Garcia, a Miami Republican, noted that Biden administration officials called Jan. 6 rioters domestic terrorists. She was one of two Republicans who voted against the bill.

Others noted that the government once considered the NAACP and Martin Luther King to be threats.

“I think that this bill is very scary for many Floridians,” said Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith, an Orlando Democrat.

A companion bill passed Thursday, HB 1473, would make portions of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s determinations secret under state law if they include information “critical to state or national security.”

“That is an extraordinary amount of authority to place in government without allowing the public to determine how to understand how those determinations are being made,” said Senate Minority Leader Lori Berman, a Boca Raton Democrat.

Grall said the records could be viewed by the organization or its attorneys in any court challenge.

“We should be concerned about revealing information critical to state or national security without the review of a court,” Grall said.