DeSantis' Free State of Florida is a joke [View all]

Legislature poised to grant new powers after court’s rebuke.

If you want to see what freedom looks like in Gov. Ron DeSantis’ “Free State of Florida,” look at two remarkable events last week.

First, a federal judge in Florida ruled March 4 that DeSantis violated the U.S. Constitution by unilaterally designating the Council on American-Islamic Relations as a foreign terrorist organization. U.S. District Judge Mark Walker wrote that 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.”

DeSantis issued an executive order in December designating CAIR, one of the nation’s largest Muslim advocacy and civil rights groups, as a terrorist organization, barring CAIR and “any person” who provided support or resources to CAIR from receiving any state contract, employment funds or other benefits. One week later, CAIR filed a lawsuit against DeSantis, arguing that the governor had usurped his authority and penalized the group in violation of its constitutionally protected free speech rights.

Walker granted the preliminary injunction sought by CAIR, halting enforcement of the governor’s order while the lawsuit moves forward.

Securing an injunction against the government is no small thing. Courts give wide deference to the executive branch, and judges don’t hand out injunctions without believing that a plaintiff will likely prevail at trial.

Still, everyone should have seen the court’s rebuke coming. As the judge wrote, DeSantis violated even a governor’s own expansive power, declaring CAIR a terrorist group “with no substantive explanation of his authority to do so, no legislative involvement and no mechanism for judicial review.” Walker noted that CAIR “continues to suffer” its public standing from DeSantis’ use of the bully pulpit,” noting — in an extraordinary footnote — that the governor “is choosing to be a bully.”

https://www.tampabay.com/viewpoints/2026/03/11/desantis-free-state-florida-is-joke-column/