Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ very public feud with the Walt Disney Co. entered a new phase this week, when the entertainment conglomerate filed a lawsuit alleging the governor and his administration violated the company’s First Amendment rights. .
Disney, which employs 75,000 people at a group of theme parks and hotels in central Florida, said a series of new restrictions placed on the company were aimed at retaliating for public criticism of one of DeSantis’ key legislative initiatives. . The legislation, commonly known as the “Don’t Say Gay” law, restricts the ability of teachers in Florida schools to discuss issues of sexuality and gender identity.
In a series of measures beginning last year, the Florida legislature, at DeSantis’s urging, stripped the company of the ability to self-govern the land on which its parks and hotels sit, changed the rules governing inspections of travel security and took other actions directed at the company. The changes appear to have applied only to Disney, and not to other autonomous districts and theme parks in the state.
The fight with Disney has helped keep DeSantis in the news ahead of what is expected to be an announcement of his run for the Republican presidential nomination in mid-May. DeSantis currently ranks second in polls of likely Republican primary voters, trailing former President Donald Trump by a significant margin.
last drop
This week, a new board appointed to oversee the district where Disney is located moved to void development agreements his predecessor had reached with the company. Those deals, agreed to shortly before the old board was replaced, would have significantly limited the new board’s power over the company.
Minutes after the vote, Disney announced that it had filed a lawsuit alleging unlawful retaliation.
“A targeted campaign of government retaliation, orchestrated at every turn 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,” accuse the claim.
For his part, DeSantis said Thursday that the lawsuit is without merit.
“Do you want a company to have its own fief or do you want everyone to live under the same laws?” he told reporters in Israel while taking part in a trade mission abroad. “The days of putting a company on a pedestal without accountability are over in the state of Florida.”
year-old drama
The battle between the company and the state began last year as the state legislature debated the Parents’ Rights in Education Act, which restricts teachers’ ability to discuss sexuality or gender identity with young children. Since then, the law has been expanded to cover all children through high school.
The bill’s language did not make it clear whether, for example, a gay teacher with a same-sex spouse could mention their marital status to students, earning it the nickname “Don’t Say Gay” from critics.
After taking an unclear stance on the legislation at first, then-Disney CEO Bob Chapek responded to criticism from the company’s employee base by issuing a strong denunciation of the legislation, saying it should never have become law and promising that the company would work for its repeal.
The move angered DeSantis and his allies in the legislature. The governor immediately began attacking the company in his public pronouncements when he “woke up” and vowed to “fight back.” In a fundraising email to supporters, he wrote: “If Disney wants to fight, they picked the wrong guy.”
Specific legislation
Within days, Republican state legislator Stephen Roach made it clear that lawmakers were considering action that would scrap an agreement reached in 1967 to allow Disney broad authority to govern the land on which its parks and hotels sit, known as Reedy Creek Improvement District (RCID).
Roach seemed to admit that the change was to punish the company for its complaints about the parental rights in education law.
“If Disney wants to embrace the ideology of the awakening, it seems appropriate for Orange County to regulate them,” he said. (The RCID was excavated on land partly in Orange County and partly in Osceola County.)
In recent weeks, DeSantis has made other public comments that suggest he is looking for additional ways to punish Disney.
In recent public comments, he suggested that he and his staff are considering new taxes on company hotels, tolls on roads used by visitors to travel to the park and building other projects on nearby state property.
At a news conference, DeSantis floated the idea of locating a new state prison on nearby land. “Who knows? I think the possibilities are endless,” he said.
strong claim
First Amendment experts contacted by VOA said Disney appears to have powerful arguments behind its claim that DeSantis and the legislature have unlawfully retaliated against protected speech.
“Disney has a pretty strong claim here,” RonNell Andersen Jones, a law professor at the University of Utah, said in an email. “First Amendment doctrine makes it clear that you offend the Constitution when you [el] government takes steps to retaliate for speech or expressive positions”.
Gregory Magarian, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, agreed.
“It is clear, axiomatic, obvious, that if the government retaliates against a speaker for what they say, that is a violation of the First Amendment,” he told VOA.
Magarian said that to overcome Disney’s argument, the state would have to argue that the actions it took against Disney were the result of public policy preferences and were not intended to punish the company.
“I think the public record, and what DeSantis has said and what the legislators have said, will make it quite an uphill climb,” he said.
republican doubts
DeSantis, widely seen as a rising star in the Republican Party, has come under fire from some of his former political allies in recent days for his relentless attack on Disney.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Washington’s most powerful Republican politician, criticized the governor’s approach on Thursday.
“This is a great employer within Florida,” he said. “I think the governor should sit down with them. I don’t think the idea of building a prison next to a place where you bring your family is the best idea. I think it would be much better if you sat down and worked out the problems.”
Former President Trump, writing on Truth Social, a social network owned by his company, also piled on.
“Disney’s next move will be the announcement that no more money will be invested in Florida because of the governor. In fact, they might even announce a slow retirement or the sale of certain properties, or everything. Look!” he wrote. “That would be a killer.”
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