{"id":189123,"date":"2026-03-12T19:56:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T19:56:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/189123\/"},"modified":"2026-03-12T19:56:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T19:56:09","slug":"bill-targeting-terrorist-groups-heads-to-governors-desk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/189123\/","title":{"rendered":"Bill targeting ‘terrorist’ groups heads to governor’s desk"},"content":{"rendered":"

Legislation that would allow Florida leaders to designate domestic \u201cterrorist\u201d groups is headed to Gov. Ron DeSantis\u2019 desk, even as critics say it unfairly targets Muslims.<\/p>\n

The House first signed off on the proposal last week,<\/a> but it had to vote on it again on Thursday because the Senate approved an amended version of the bill.<\/a><\/p>\n

After nearly an hour of heated debate, the Florida House said \u201cyes\u201d a second time, all but guaranteeing the bill will become law. Gov. Ron DeSantis\u2019 office authored the proposal, the Tampa Bay Times reported this week, though a spokeswoman declined to comment about whether he would sign it.<\/p>\n

House members approved the Republican-backed legislation along party lines, with several Democrats arguing its passage would infringe on Floridians\u2019 constitutional rights.<\/p>\n

The bill would allow the Florida Department of Law Enforcement\u2019s chief of domestic security to designate certain groups as terrorist organizations, with the approval of the Florida Cabinet, which is chaired by the governor and is made up of three other statewide elected officials.<\/p>\n

Islamic groups are particularly concerned about the consequences of the legislation because it references sharia law, the duties required of Muslims.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

State universities and colleges that \u201cadvocate for\u201d state-designated terrorist groups might have their performance funding withheld, and students who promote these organizations could be expelled. Additionally, anyone who works for state-designated terrorist organizations could face felony charges.<\/p>\n

Schools that are affiliated with these groups could be barred from receiving vouchers, which students use to pay tuition at nearly 2,500 campuses across the state. A tiny fraction of those schools, less than 1%, are Islamic. The majority are Christian.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"WISEWISE Academy, which shares a campus with Masjid Al Hayy in Sanford, is an Islamic school that participates in Florida’s voucher program. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda\/ Orlando Sentinel)<\/p>\n

The Senate approved an amended version of the bill (HB 1471) last week that, among other changes, clarified what it meant to \u201cpromote\u201d terrorist groups on college campuses. To meet that definition, someone must recruit members or provide material support; make a threat of unlawful violence; disrupt the learning environment or commit some action that results in \u201csubstantial disorder;\u201d or impedes the rights of others.<\/p>\n

Simply expressing support for an organization during a class discussion or protesting would not be considered promoting it, bill sponsor Rep. Hillary Cassel said.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018Promote\u2019 is not just speech alone,\u201d said Cassel, a Republican from Dania Beach.<\/p>\n

Democrats pushed back, some arguing that the state once attacked the NAACP and other civil rights groups and saying they feared that type of persecution could happen again.<\/p>\n

Clarifying that simply speaking in support of an organization that the state considers to be \u201cterrorist\u201d won\u2019t land a college student in hot water wasn\u2019t enough, they said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fact is it\u2019s too easy to blur the lines of taking away someone\u2019s First Amendment rights because you don\u2019t like what they\u2019re saying and designating them as a terrorist of the state,\u201d said Rep. Rita Harris, an Orlando Democrat.<\/p>\n

Tensions flared throughout the discussion. Democrat Angie Nixon of Jacksonville told her Republican colleagues they were \u201cdead wrong\u201d to support the legislation, which she considered \u201cun-American\u201d and \u201cdisrespectful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cassel fired back at the Democrats, suggesting that people who didn\u2019t support the bill were \u201csurrendering their children to terrorism.\u201d The proposal, she said, \u201cprotects the Constitution, protects us from those that want to change us, protects us from those who want western civilization to fall.\u201d<\/p>\n

A related proposal (HB 1473) would exempt from public disclosure records concerning the decision to designate groups as terrorist organizations. The House also gave approval to that bill on Thursday.<\/p>\n

anmartin@orlandosentinel.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Legislation that would allow Florida leaders to designate domestic \u201cterrorist\u201d groups is headed to Gov. Ron DeSantis\u2019 desk,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":189124,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[114,115,139,141,140,99,109],"class_list":["post-189123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-latest-headlines","tag-news","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-politics","tag-social"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189123","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=189123"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189123\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/189124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}