{"id":63359,"date":"2026-03-04T20:39:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T01:39:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=63359"},"modified":"2026-03-04T20:39:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T01:39:16","slug":"u-s-district-judge-mark-e-walker-ruled-that-the-governors-order-likely-violated-the-first-amendment-and-exceeded-state-authority","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2026\/03\/04\/u-s-district-judge-mark-e-walker-ruled-that-the-governors-order-likely-violated-the-first-amendment-and-exceeded-state-authority\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. District Judge Mark E. Walker ruled that the governor’s order likely violated the First Amendment and exceeded state authority"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

On Wednesday, March 4, 2026, a federal judge in Tallahassee issued a preliminary injunction to block an executive order by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis that had labeled the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)<\/strong> and the Muslim Brotherhood<\/strong> as “foreign terrorist organizations.”<\/p>\n\n\n

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U.S. District Judge Mark E. Walker ruled that the governor’s order likely violated the First Amendment and exceeded state authority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Key Details of the Ruling<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  • Constitutional Overreach:<\/strong> Judge Walker wrote that the First Amendment prevents the governor from using his office to make “political statements at the expense of others’ constitutional rights.”<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Federal Authority:<\/strong> The court noted that the power to designate “Foreign Terrorist Organizations” (FTOs) rests exclusively with the federal government. CAIR has never been designated as such by any federal agency.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Impact of the Injunction:<\/strong> The ruling halts the enforcement of the order, which had instructed state agencies to block these groups\u2014and anyone providing them “material support”\u2014from receiving state contracts, employment, or government benefits.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n

    Background of the Dispute<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The legal battle began in December 2025 after Governor DeSantis issued the executive order, followng a similar move by Texas Governor Greg Abbott<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Party<\/strong><\/td>Argument\/Stance<\/strong><\/td><\/tr><\/thead>
    Gov. Ron DeSantis<\/strong><\/td>Alleged the groups had ties to terrorism and stated he “welcomed” the lawsuit as an opportunity to use the discovery process to investigate CAIR\u2019s finances.<\/td><\/tr>
    CAIR-Florida<\/strong><\/td>Argued the label was a “smear campaign” and retaliation for their advocacy for Palestinian human rights and previous legal challenges against the DeSantis administration.<\/td><\/tr>
    Civil Rights Groups<\/strong><\/td>Joined the suit (including the SPLC and MLFA), arguing the order created a “culture of fear” and unconstitutionally targeted American Muslims.<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

    What’s Next?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The injunction is a temporary measure<\/strong> that stays in place while the full lawsuit proceeds through the court system. While the governor\u2019s office has not yet issued a formal response to this specific ruling, they have previously indicated they intend to fight the case to gain access to the organizations’ internal records.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    On Wednesday, March 4, 2026, a federal judge in Tallahassee issued a preliminary injunction to block an executive order by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis that had labeled the Council on… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14822,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"15","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyMVwvMDlcL1VTLURpc3RyaWN0LUp1ZGdlLU1hcmstV2Fsa2VyLmpwZz9maXQ9MjcxJTJDMTg2JnNzbD0xIiwidHh0IjoiVS5TLiBEaXN0cmljdCBKdWRnZSBNYXJrIEUuIFdhbGtlciBydWxlZCB0aGF0IHRoZSBnb3Zlcm5vciYjODIxNztzIG9yZGVyIGxpa2VseSB2aW9sYXRlZCB0aGUgRmlyc3QgQW1lbmRtZW50IGFuZCBleGNlZWRlZCBzdGF0ZSBhdXRob3JpdHkiLCJ0ZW1wbGF0ZSI6ImhpZ2h3YXkiLCJmb250IjoiIiwiYmxvZ19pZCI6MTYzMDQwNjYxfQ.NrApW9BUZeJJBmm1zde9nHaQ2I278Ujl5Iw8DWY9Pl8MQ"},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[15],"tags":[13927],"class_list":["post-63359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-u-s-district-judge-mark-e-walker-ruled-that-the-governors-order-likely-violated-the-first-amendment-and-exceeded-state-authority"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63359"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63359\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63360,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63359\/revisions\/63360"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}