Florida Government Weekly Roundup: Work Clothes, Executions, Terrorist List

October 4, 2026

Legal action was quickly pushed as Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Cabinet this week designated several groups as national and international terrorist organizations.

Concerns were raised over some aspects of a new dress code for state education employees.

And as DeSantis approaches the end of his second and final term, he found another job for one of his most loyal lieutenants.

GO TO GUY

With little notice, DeSantis and the Florida Cabinet appointed Larry Keefe on Tuesday as the next executive director for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

“In every position he had he performed at the highest possible level,” DeSantis said. “Larry will lead the agency with distinction, ensuring the rule of law and public safety will remain a top priority.”

Keefe is a former federal prosecutor who was instrumental in DeSantis’ push to remove former Hillsborough County State Attorney Andrew Warren from office for allegedly pledging not to enforce abortion laws. He also organized flights as part of a state operation that took undocumented immigrants from Texas and dropped them in Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts.

In those episodes he served as Florida’s public safety czar, and later he held the position of executive director of the State Board of Immigration Enforcement, but left that job in October 2025.

Keefe will take over for Mark Glass, who is leaving his post Oct. 15 to become undersheriff for the Miami-Dade County Sheriff’s Office.

Glass took over as acting executive director in May 2022 and formally took over permanently in August 2022.

THE LIST

DeSantis and the Cabinet on Tuesday also voted to designate more than 90 groups as terrorist organizations, including the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Muslim Brotherhood, and the anti-fascism movement known as antifa.

Hina Shamsi, the director of the ACLU National Security Project, who wanted to speak to the state panel prior to the vote, told reporters after the meeting her group would file on behalf of CAIR-Florida for a preliminary injunction against the designation.

“There is nowhere in that notice any allegation or evidence that CAIR has engaged in any violent or dangerous act in violation of Florida or U.S. law,” Shamsi said Tuesday outside the Cabinet meeting. “And that’s the first requirement for something as serious as this.”

The list is built upon wide-ranging 2026 legislation (HB 1471) that also bars a court from enforcing any provision of a religious or foreign law, with an emphasis against the Islamic code known as Sharia law, and requires expelling any student in the Florida College System who “promotes” terrorist organizations.

Shamsi said the DeSantis administration has engaged in a “relentless” effort to label CAIR-Florida a terrorist organization. Shamsi described CAIR-Florida as an American nonprofit engaged in promoting civil rights.

“When the designation goes into effect, because this is steamrolling its way forward, and if it is not prevented, our clients will be unable to carry out their constitutionally protected activities in this state,” Shamsi said. “And that, as we have said, and I would have said today, is in violation of their due process rights under the (U.S.) Constitution and in violation of their First Amendment rights, among other things.”

WORK CLOTHES

The Florida Department of Education is considering a new dress code policy for employees that puts restrictions on religious head coverings, Crocs and short skirts, along with sweatpants, excessively worn footwear, and sheer tights and leggings worn as pants.

In a draft sent to employees and obtained by the News Service of Florida, the DOE would require approval for head coverings on a “case-by-case basis for religious or medical reasons.”

“The Department reserves the right to determine whether attire is appropriate for the workplace,” the policy states.

The proposal comes just two months after the State Board of Education appointed Henry Mack as the new education commissioner, replacing Anastasios Kamoutsas. In his short tenure, Mack has continued to push DeSantis’ priorities, including tightening restrictions on classroom libraries and rewriting Florida’s K-12 science standards.

First Amendment experts say the dress policy draft’s language is too vague, and application of the rules for religious head coverings could run afoul of both the federal and state constitutions.

“This makes it sound like leadership can choose when they want to make an exception, and it also makes it seem like they’re doing you a favor,” said Bobby Block, executive director of the Florida First Amendment Foundation. “If it’s a religious covering, it’s not a favor you can grant, you are obliged to respect that under federal and state law.”

LETHAL COCKTAILS

Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a death warrant Thursday that puts the state in position to match his modern-era record 19 executions conducted in 2025.

The warrant came two days after the state’s 16th execution of this year. Also this week, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee halted executions and ordered an independent, third-party investigation after his state botched the execution of Christa Gail Pike. In May, Tennessee halted another execution when an intravenous line could not be established into an inmate.

Noting that one of the now three Florida inmates scheduled to be executed this month “is gravely ill,” Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty warned that “The spectacle we have now seen twice in Tennessee could repeat in Florida. We have been warned, and there is still time to prevent it.”

But Tennessee’s lethal injection protocol differs from Florida’s. Tennessee’s method relies on the barbiturate pentobarbital.

Florida uses a three-drug lethal injection protocol, using Etomidate, Rocuronium bromide, Potassium acetate, which are sequenced to induce a state of deep unconsciousness and sedation, act as a paralytic agent once unconsciousness is established, and to stop cardiac functions.

STORY OF THE WEEK:

Larry Keefe, who organized a series of migrant flights from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard, was approved as the next FDLE executive director.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK:

“I would send my kid to the University of Florida, who graduated from here, 10 times out of 10 before I would spend $70,000 on tuition for a private university degree.” — State University System Board of Governors Chairman Alan Levine discussing Pittsburgh-based Carnegie Mellon University’s move into Miami.

by Jim Turner, The News Service of Florida

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Written by William Reynolds · Filed Under FRONT FEATURE