The Walt Disney Company is suing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, alleging his efforts to rein in its power in Florida damaged its business.
“A targeted campaign of government retaliation—orchestrated at every step by Governor DeSantis as punishment for Disney’s protected speech—now threatens Disney’s business operations, jeopardizes its economic future in the region, and violates its constitutional rights,” the lawsuit states.
Well, it’s a little more complicated than that.
Taryn Fenske, the communications director for DeSantis, told The Hill in a statement that the lawsuit is “another unfortunate attempt” by Disney to try to “undermine the will of the Florida voters and operate outside the bounds of the law.”
“We are unaware of any legal right that a company has to operate its own government or maintain special privileges not held by other businesses in the state,” Fenske said.
And that’s the long and short of it. Just because Disney has been able to govern itself through control of the Reedy Creek Improvement District for 50 years does not mean that this obvious sweetheart arrangement would go on forever.
DeSantis legally replaced Reedy Creek with the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District. But before handing power to the DeSantis board, Reedy Creek struck a deal with Disney that maintained the company’s control over the park. That led the DeSantis-backed Tourism Oversight Board to declare the agreement void.
Related: A ‘Caper Worthy of Scrooge McDuck’: Behind Disney’s Reedy Creek Maneuvers
“This government action was patently retaliatory, patently anti-business, and patently unconstitutional,” the complaint states. “But the Governor and his allies have made clear that they do not care and will not stop.”
It may be anti-Disney but it’s hardly “retaliatory,” when Disney undermined the authority of the elected legislature and governor by striking a deal with Reedy Creek just hours before it was to pass out of existence.
The company claims that the governor’s actions nullified their right to free speech. The company certainly didn’t have a right to misrepresent and willfully exaggerate what the Parental Rights in Education law was supposed to do. Disney promised to work to repeal the law and vowed to “stand up for the rights and safety” of the LGBTQ community.
The lawsuit was filed on the same day that the district’s board of supervisors, which DeSantis had picked to take control over Disney’s Orlando-area parks, moved to undo a development deal that it says Disney struck to thwart its power.
The panel unanimously voted to declare “void and unenforceable” that development deal, which was approved shortly before DeSantis replaced the Disney-approved board with his preferred supervisors.
The lawsuit called that action the “latest strike,” saying the development contracts “laid the foundation for billions of Disney’s investment dollars and thousands of jobs.”
Disney is also asking that the board’s legislative step be declared “unlawful and unenforceable.” That’s a huge reach and something courts at any level are extremely hesitant to do. The bill creating Central Florida Tourism Oversight District was introduced in a legal fashion, and it was debated and passed in accordance with Florida law. No one’s rights are trampled by the bill. The Florida legislature is well within its rights to govern its own territory.
Just because Disney doesn’t like the legislation doesn’t mean they can stomp their feet and throw a tantrum, ordering the court to declare a law passed by the sovereign state of Florida null and void. All Disney is doing is continuing to excavate the hole it dug for itself when it decided to take a hand in partisan politics.
