{"id":136507,"date":"2026-01-29T17:24:20","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T17:24:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/136507\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T17:24:20","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T17:24:20","slug":"house-panel-approves-measure-that-would-designate-domestic-terrorist-organizations-in-florida","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/136507\/","title":{"rendered":"House panel approves measure that would designate domestic terrorist organizations in Florida"},"content":{"rendered":"

A House bill calling for a domestic terrorism organizaiton list in Florida drew sharp questions and pushback Thursday.<\/p>\n

The House Civil Justice and Claims Subcommittee<\/a> debated the bill (HB 1471<\/a>) sponsored by Hollywood Republican Rep. Hillary Cassel<\/a>. While there was extensive criticism, the panel voted 14-3 to approve.<\/p>\n

St. Petersburg Democrat Rep. Michelle Rayner<\/a> wondered who ultimately decides what groups are domestic terrorist organizations.<\/p>\n

Cassel emphasized the Commissioner of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement<\/a>\u00a0does that. And then the designation would go to the Florida Cabinet for review and that panel makes the final decision.<\/p>\n

\u201cPrior to a group being notified why does not your bill specify a due process to rebut that prior to a decision being (made),\u201d Rayner said.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Cassel said, \u201cIt\u2019s not an adjudication, it\u2019s a designation,\u201d noting there\u2019s an appeals process and any group listed can seek judicial review within 30 days.<\/p>\n

Several committee members pointed out since there is no domestic terrorist list on the federal level, why would Florida engage in such a grouping.<\/p>\n

Cassel said Florida is surrounded by water, has a huge economy and \u201cFlorida finds it necessary to protect our state accordingly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Several activist organization representatives spoke during the nearly two-hour hearing and claimed the bill is \u201coverreaching.\u201d Many raised concerns over threats to free speech rights. There were some who voiced support for the bill.<\/p>\n

Cassel said the measure is a reflection of existing law that describes terrorism as threatening human life, violent criminal conduct and involves coercion or intimidation.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThis bill does not designate speech. It designates conduct,\u201d Cassel said.<\/p>\n

A related bill sponsored by Cassel (HB 1473<\/a>) provides exemption from public records requirements for \u201ccertain information\u201d for those designated as domestic terrorist organizations. The subcommittee also approved that measure.<\/p>\n

While criticism of the measure was plentiful, most of those activist organization representatives asked the legislation be clarified.<\/p>\n

The bills still need to go to the House Education and Employment and the Judiciary committees.<\/p>\n

Two similar bills (SB 1632<\/a> and SB 1634<\/a>) are working their way through the Senate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A House bill calling for a domestic terrorism organizaiton list in Florida drew sharp questions and pushback Thursday.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":136508,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[66714,5700,2687,28,3289,4860,30,29,11113,66715,66716,63000,62940,58274,66717,66718],"class_list":["post-136507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-domestic-terrorism-list","tag-fdle","tag-first-amendment","tag-florida","tag-florida-cabinet","tag-florida-department-of-law-enforcement","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-free-speech","tag-hb-1471","tag-hb-1473","tag-hillary-cassel","tag-house-civil-justice-and-claims-subcommittee","tag-michelle-rayner","tag-sb-1632","tag-sb-1634"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136507"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136507\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/136508"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}