How Florida's term-limited governor is creating a 'police state' as his legacy

[In It to Win It]

Ron DeSantis, Florida’s Republican hard-right governor, will be termed out of office in barely 10 months’ time. Civil rights groups watching a slew of new restrictive laws passing through the state’s legislature say his bequest will be a “police state”, where government officials dictate what residents can do, say or believe.

They point in particular to two House bills they say restrict free speech, and which have already found favor with Florida’s veto-proof Republican majority:

HB1471 would give a handful of state officials unprecedented power to designate as a “terrorist group” any organization whose aims and policies they do not like, including non-profits operating for religious, charitable and social justice purposes.

HB945 creates a “counterintelligence and counterterrorism” unit within the Florida department of law enforcement that critics say will be used to spy on groups or individuals whose “actions, views, or opinions” are deemed “a threat or are inimical to the interests of this state”.

But there are others: an education bill that blocks state funds from any campus where students “advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion, or promote or engage in political or social activism”, such as the gun control walkouts that followed the 2018 mass shooting at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school.

Another House bill that passed smoothly through committee scrutiny seeks to limit anonymous complaints against law enforcement, which will lead to “fewer investigations and more coverups”.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/02/florida-ron-desantis-police-state-legacy