Florida cabinet approves designation rule in a vote shorter than a traffic light

On Friday 11 September, Governor Ron DeSantis and the Florida Cabinet approved a rule setting out how the Florida Department of Law Enforcement designates groups in the state as domestic or foreign terrorist organisations. Mitch Perry of Florida Phoenix, whose report was syndicated across the state’s public-radio network, wrote that the item took less than two minutes. “This provides an appropriate framework where that they can take action appropriately so that they can defend the people of Florida against possible actors and terrorist groups,” DeSantis said. “So, I move to approve the item as presented.” Florida’s chief of domestic security — identified in the syndicated copy only by the surname Glass — told the Cabinet: “As Florida chief of domestic security, I know there are imminent dangers to public health, safety, and welfare due to increasing risks from foreign and domestic terrorist groups.” Under the statute, designation power rests with the governor, the cabinet and the chief of domestic security; a designated group may petition for judicial review after the fact.

The rule sits on top of a contested litigation stack. DeSantis first tried to designate CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood by executive order in December 2025; CAIR Florida challenged it in March 2026 and a federal judge issued a temporary injunction. On 1 July 2026, the day the designation statute took effect, DeSantis designated three entities — CAIR, Antifa and the Muslim Brotherhood — and CAIR and its Florida affiliate sued in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida, alleging violations of federal speech, religious and due-process rights, Bloomberg Law reported. The complaint, quoted in that filing, argues the statute “does not require that the designation be based on evidence; does not require State officials to satisfy any burden of proof; does not allow for review by a neutral decisionmaker prior to designation; and at no point requires disclosure of the State’s evidence (if any) to the designated organization.” In July the ACLU, the ACLU of Florida and two other legal groups filed a second challenge in the same court.

Assessment: There is no incorporated Florida entity called the Muslim Brotherhood on which process can be served. The designation’s operative target is CAIR — which is why CAIR, and not the Brotherhood, is the plaintiff in both federal suits. Any edition that writes this as “Florida moves against the Brotherhood” has adopted the state’s framing rather than described the mechanism. What the two-minute vote actually did was supply procedure to a designation already made in July and already enjoined once. The federal architecture above it — four chapters designated by State and Treasury between January and March, two bills still stalled in Congress — is where the legally consequential decisions remain.