Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis Sued Over State Cabinet Meeting In Jerusalem

JERUSALEM (JTA) — An open-government watchdog group and several news outlets filed a lawsuit against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and members of the Florida State Cabinet over a meeting being held in Jerusalem.

The Cabinet meeting at the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem was scheduled to be held on Wednesday afternoon.

The lawsuit said that the meeting violates the Florida state constitution and state open government laws which require Cabinet meetings be open and accessible to the public.

The meeting was to be livestreamed on The Florida Channel.

Judge Angela C. Dempsey of the Second Circuit Court of Florida on Tuesday denied an emergency motion to stop Wednesday’s meeting from happening, since DeSantis and the Cabinet members could not be served with a summons, according to Florida news reports.

Meanwhile, DeSantis on Monday said that “Holding a meeting of the Florida Cabinet in the embassy in Jerusalem, that is going to be a real neat thing.” He made the remark to members of the business delegation during a reception at the residence in Herzliya of U.S. Amb. David Friedman.

DeSantis and a 90-person state trade delegation arrived in Israel on Sunday. He has so far signed agreements on working with Israel and Israeli companies in space technology, agriculture, protecting water, and cybersecurity.

On Monday DeSantis visited Ariel University, becoming the first sitting state governor to visit the West Bank. During the visit he signed a Memorandum of Understanding between Ariel and Florida State University. Sheldon and Miriam Adelson, major donors to the university, were present during DeSantis’ visit.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.