Florida Governor Ron DeSantis Signs "Anti-Woke" Bank Law

The United States Treasury Department has taken aim at Florida’s new anti-woke banking law — warning it could open the floodgates for criminals to use and manipulate the U.S. financial system.

The new state law (HB 989), signed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis last May, declares that it would be "unsafe and unsound" for banks to consider non-financial factors like politics, religion or environmental, social and corporate-governance (ESG) when doing business.

"We reject a global elite trying to force their ideology on us by capturing major institutions," DeSantis, who has led an aggressive campaign against so-called "woke" ideology in the Sunshine State, said when signing HB 989 into law.

"We are not going to allow big banks to discriminate based on someone’s political or religious beliefs."

But while DeSantis claims he’s fighting discrimination, the U.S. Treasury has labeled the Florida law — and other similar laws under consideration in mostly conservative states like Arizona, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana and South Dakota — as a potential threat to national security.

DeSantis’ goal with HB 989 was to "strengthen Florida’s protections for consumers … from being forced to adopt ideologies or reflect a preferred political behavior."

Per an Associated Press report, DeSantis said the law will protect the access that conservative groups and the firearms industry have to the financial sector — and stop them from having their accounts frozen or closed.

The law makes it illegal for banks to "deny or cancel, suspend, or terminate its services to a person, or to otherwise discriminate against a person in making available such services” on the basis of several factors, including (but not limited to):

• The person’s political opinions, speech, or affiliations
• Any factor if it is not a quantitative, impartial, and risk-based standard, including any such factor related to the person’s business sector
• The person’s engagement in the lawful manufacture, distribution, sale, purchase, or use of firearms or ammunition
• The person’s engagement in the exploration, production, utilization, transportation, sale, or manufacture of fossil fuel-based energy, timber, mining, or agriculture

It also allows Floridians to appeal "unwarranted account cancellations and restrictions" through a coordinated complaint and investigatory process within the state’s Office of Financial Regulation.