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DeSantis wants to end Disney World’s special status in Florida

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Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, has asked lawmakers to consider a bill that would halt Disney World’s exemptions to state regulations that were established more than 50 years ago.

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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando in February. (Octavio Jones/Reuters)

Six years ago, Indiana's then-Gov. Mike Pence scrambled to change a "religious freedom" bill he had just signed into law because Corporate America objected.

Apple and Salesforce opposed the bill, which seemed to allow businesses to discriminate against gay men and lesbians. Eli Lilly, a big employer in the state, called it "bad for Indiana and for business." Indiana's Chamber of Commerce said the law was "entirely unnecessary."

Lawmakers listened. The Republican-controlled statehouse quickly revised the bill to clarify that it couldn't be used to deny service based on sexual orientation. Pence signed it. And a fight between two longtime allies - companies and Republicans - was over.

But Pence's capitulation can feel like a postcard from a distant era as growing numbers of state and federal Republican leaders today seem eager to clash with America's biggest corporations over bills on similar hot-button issues.

DeSantis proposes dissolving special tax status for Disney World

Last year, the GOP attacked firms like Delta Air Lines and Major League Baseball for standing against Georgia's restrictive voting bill. Citigroup was threatened for taking action seen as opposing Texas's recent abortion ban. And Disney's complaints about Florida's new law limiting classroom discussion of sexual identity has led to Republicans targeting the Magic Kingdom's perks. On Wednesday, the GOP-controlled Florida Senate voted 23-16 to eliminate Disney's special district status, and the Florida House could follow suit on Thursday. The implications of this major change remain unclear.

Despite the onslaught, companies are not backing down - goaded by heightened expectations from customers and employees. Citigroup did not rescind its offer to help its Texas workers obtain out-of-state abortion services after a new restrictive law there, despite the threat from a state GOP representative to block the financial firm from underwriting municipal bonds.

The result is fresh cracks in the once-sturdy relationship between companies and a business-friendly GOP.

This strange new state-of-play is starkest in the clash between Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican with presidential ambitions, and the Walt Disney Company, a theme park and entertainment giant with 80,000 workers in the Sunshine State alone.

In a surprise move this week, DeSantis asked Florida lawmakers at a special session on congressional redistricting to also look at killing off any self-governing districts created before 1968 - including the one Disney World has enjoyed in the Orlando area for nearly six decades.

A governor's spokesman said this was not about revenge for Disney publicly opposing a bill favored by DeSantis that banned discussions about sexual orientation or gender identity in primary school classrooms.

How Disney fell flat in fight over LGBTQ talk in Florida's schools

"This is about evening the playing field for businesses in Florida," Bryan Griffin, a spokesman for the governor, said via email. "Yes, Disney benefits from one of these special districts, but the call is to examine the existence of all special districts."

Aubrey Jewett wasn't buying it.

"It's clear they're doing it to punish Disney," said Jewett, an associate professor of political science at the University of Central Florida, noting the fallout from erasing special districts is something legislators would usually want to study before doing.

"In normal political times," he said, "this would be unthinkable."

There is little normal about Florida's governor going after the state's most powerful company.

The formally titled Parental Rights in Education bill, signed by DeSantis earlier this month, was instantly polarizing.

DeSantis's press secretary Christina Pushaw labeled it the "Anti-Grooming Bill."

Disney was hit for not doing enough to stop the legislation and protect its LGBTQ workers. Disney executives apologized. They promised to halt contributions to Florida politicians while they reexamined priorities. Then the company said the bill "should never have passed and should never have been signed into law" and promised to push for its repeal.

Even after signing the bill, DeSantis kept taking shots at Disney.

He said the company had "crossed the line."

"They do not control this state," DeSantis added.

Other Republican lawmakers joined in.

State Rep. Randy Fine tweeted that he was introducing the bill to eliminate Disney's Reedy Creek Improvement District: "Disney is a guest in Florida. Today, we remind them." It hasn't stopped there.

Companies, facing new expectations, struggle with pressure to take stand on Georgia voting bill

A group of 17 Republican Congress members wrote a letter to Disney chief executive Bob Chapek saying they wouldn't support extending copyright protection for Mickey Mouse beyond the 2024 expiration date. The letter, from Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) and Chris Jacobs (R-N.Y.) among others, said Disney "has capitulated to far-left activists through hypocritical, woke corporate actions," pointing to the company's opposition to the Florida classroom bill.

Disney did not respond to a request for comment. The Business Roundtable, which includes CEOs of America's largest companies, declined to comment.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce - billed as the world's largest business organization - indirectly addressed the issue of GOP lawmakers seeking retribution against companies opposing them on social issues.

"It is the Chamber's long held position that policymakers should judge policies on the merits of the policy and what is good for increasing prosperity for their constituents and the nation," Chamber spokesman Tim Doyle said.

Didi Kuo, senior research scholar at Stanford's Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law., said, "I think Corporate America has been torn about how to proceed."

Companies would prefer to avoid these issues, Kuo said. But the old rules about how politics and business mix are changing. The Republican Party appears to be staking out less mainstream views on some cultural issues, Kuo said, making it harder for companies to navigate.

This has shuffled some familiar allegiances. In 2017, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) helped push through one of the largest corporate tax cuts in history, but last April he sent companies a message: "My warning to corporate America is to stay out of politics."

McConnell's outburst was in response to Corporate America's opposition to Georgia's voting bill passed in March 2021. Opponents said the legislation was aimed at making it harder for some people to cast ballots.

Hundreds of firms - including Target, Microsoft and American Airlines - signed onto a statement that called voting "the lifeblood of our democracy" and said that "we must ensure the right to vote for all of us."

Major League Baseball decided to yank that summer's upcoming All-Star Game from Georgia.

Ed Bastian, leader of Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines, told employees what he thought of the legislation, including, "the final bill is unacceptable and does not match Delta's values."

That did not sit well with some Republicans.

How two Black CEOs got corporate America to pay attention to voting rights

Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) introduced a bill to strip the MLB of its antitrust exemption, which classifies the league as a sport rather than a business.

"If Major League Baseball is going to act dishonestly and spread lies about Georgia's voting rights bill to favor one party against the other, they shouldn't expect to continue to receive special benefits from Congress," Cruz said in a statement.

The bill never went anywhere. But their point was made.

And Georgia's Republican-controlled House voted to revoke a jet-fuel tax break used by Delta to save at least $35 million a year. But that bill died before full passage.

Georgia's lawmakers passed a similar bill in 2018 after Delta ended a partnership with the National Rifle Association in response to the school shooting in Parkland, Fla. But then-Gov. Nathan Deal, also a Republican, stopped collecting the tax months later.

Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a Yale management professor with close ties to corporate boardrooms, said companies were not backing down from the fight with what he called "GOP cancel culture grandstanding threats."

"Companies scoff at this pathetic barking from dogs chained up by their garages," he wrote in an email to The Washington Post, noting how the "Trump-orientated GOP" had already lost the mainstream U.S. business world.

Dozens of companies paused or stopped making political donations to the Republicans in Congress who voted against certifying the 2020 election of President Biden, he said. At least 600 companies signed petitions against Republican-led restrictions on voting access last year.

One unusual aspect of DeSantis's threats against Disney is that he has appeared willing to follow through. But it's unclear what the impact will be if Disney World loses its special district privileges.

Disney is more vulnerable to threats of political vengeance because it lacks what is often a corporate trump card: The easy ability to move.

Benjamin Means, a business law professor at the University of South Carolina, has studied what he calls the power of "corporate exit" - whether that is moving headquarters or shifting investments.

"Disney, they really can't pick up their ball and go home," Means said. "You can't relocate Disney World."

But DeSantis's tactics could make Disney rethink future investments. California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) already has asked the company to reconsider moving 2,000 jobs from his state to Florida.

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) used the recent turmoil to make pitches to Disney and Twitter - the tech company also has been criticized by DeSantis for its opposition to a takeover bid from Tesla chief executive Elon Musk.

"Florida's authoritarian socialist attacks on the private sector are driving businesses away," Polis tweeted.

Texas GOP politicians have been putting pressure on companies, too. Last year, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick attacked American Airlines for opposing changes to state voting laws.

"Texans are fed up with corporations that don't share our values trying to dictate public policy," Patrick said in a long statement.

The politics of revenge are not helpful to running a government, said Jewett, the political science professor.

"It's no way to make good public policy."

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GOP's cozy ties with Big Business unravel as DeSantis unloads on Disney

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Placeholder while article actions load Six years ago, Indiana's then-Gov. Mike Pence scrambled to change a "religious freedom" bill he had just signed into law because Corporate America objected. Apple and Salesforce opposed the bill, which seemed to allow businesses to discriminate against gay men and lesbians.

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WASHINGTON - The Florida Senate passed a bill Wednesday that would dissolve the special taxing district that allows the Walt Disney Co. to self-govern in its theme park area.

Lawmakers in the Republican-controlled chamber backed the measure in a 23-16 vote. It now requires a vote in the state House before it can go to the desk of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, who called on the Legislature to support the bill during the special session this week.

The legislation would dismantle Disney's special district on June 1, 2023. The special status, which was granted by a state law in 1967, allows Disney to self-govern by collecting taxes and providing emergency services. Disney controls about 25,000 acres in the Orlando area, and the district allows the company to build new structures and pay impact fees for such construction without the approval of a local planning commission.

The effort to eliminate Disney's district, known as the Reedy Creek Improvement District, comes after DeSantis began targeting the corporation over its leaders' criticism of legislation he recently signed that would prevent classroom discussion of gender identity and sexual orientation in kindergarten through the third grade.

DeSantis has hinted in the last few weeks that he wants to do away with Disney's protections, saying he doesn't "support special privileges in law just because a company is powerful."

Separately, the Senate also voted 24-15 on Wednesday to pass a measure that would remove Disney's exemption in a 2021 law about big tech censorship.

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Florida Senate passes bill to strip Disney's special self-governing status

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WASHINGTON - The Florida Senate passed a bill Wednesday that would dissolve the special taxing district that allows the Walt Disney Co. to self-govern in its theme park area. Lawmakers in the Republican-controlled chamber backed the measure in a 23-16 vote.

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DeSantis moves against Disney with push to eliminate special status for Florida theme park

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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis escalated his weeks-long feud with Disney on Tuesday, challenging lawmakers to eliminate the unique status that allows the entertainment company to operate as an independent government around its Orlando-area theme parks.

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The Florida Senate on Wednesday passed a bill dissolving the special taxation district that allows the Walt Disney Company to self-govern in its theme park area. The measure received a 23-16 vote in the Republican-controlled chamber. It now needs to be voted on in the state House before it can be sent to Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis' desk. During the special session this week, DeSantis urged the Legislature to support the bill. Disney's special district would be abolished on June 1, 2023, per the proposal. Disney can self-govern thanks to its special status, which was granted by a state statute in 1967 and permits it to collect taxes and provide emergency services. In the Orlando area, Disney owns around 25,000 acres, and the district allows the business to develop those lands. Separately, the Senate also voted 24-15 on Wednesday to pass a measure that would remove Disney's exemption in a 2021 law about big tech censorship

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Disney’s complaints about Florida’s new law limiting classroom discussion of sexual identity has led to Republicans targeting the Magic Kingdom’s perks. On Thursday, the GOP-controlled Florida legislature passed a bill that would eliminate Disney’s special district status, sending it to the governor. The implications of this major change remain unclear.

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DeSantis announced the move to try to dissolve the district at a press conference Tuesday with Republican leaders in Florida's House and Senate. Disney has long been one of the leading businesses in Florida with one of the most powerful voices in the state capitol. DeSantis has criticized the entertainment giant in recent months for what he has called its "woke" policies, including requiring its employees to wear facemasks in the park during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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The conflict between DeSantis and Disney arose after Disney denounced Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law, an unconstitutional law which allows parents to sue their local school district if topics such as sexual orientation or gender identity are mentioned in the classroom. The law is unconstitutional because it is so vaguely drafted that teachers cannot determine what kinds of instruction are permitted and what kinds are forbidden — although it remains to be seen whether a federal judiciary dominated by Republican appointees will strike the law down.

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https://www.vox.com/23036427/ron-desantis-disney-first-amendment-constitution-supreme-court

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At the urging of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, the Florida legislature voted this week to punish one of the world's biggest producers of entertainment and pop culture, because DeSantis and his fellow Florida Republicans disagreed with that producer's First Amendment-protected speech. DeSantis signed the bill into law on Friday.

Florida's decision to strip a government benefit from Disney because, in DeSantis's words, Disney expressed "woke" opinions and " tried to attack me to advance their woke agenda," is unconstitutional. And it's not a close case.

As the Supreme Court said in Hartman v. Moore (2006), "official reprisal for protected speech 'offends the Constitution [because] it threatens to inhibit exercise of the protected right.'" Nor does it matter how the government retaliates against a person or business who expresses an opinion that the government does not like - any official retaliation against someone because they engaged in First Amendment-protected speech is unconstitutional.

The conflict between DeSantis and Disney arose after Disney denounced Florida's "Don't Say Gay" law, an unconstitutional law which allows parents to sue their local school district if topics such as sexual orientation or gender identity are mentioned in the classroom. The law is unconstitutional because it is so vaguely drafted that teachers cannot determine what kinds of instruction are permitted and what kinds are forbidden - although it remains to be seen whether a federal judiciary dominated by Republican appointees will strike the law down.

Florida plans to strip Disney of an extraordinarily unusual benefit it receives from the state. Walt Disney World is located in a nearly 40-square-mile area that Florida has designated the " Reedy Creek Improvement District." Within this district, Disney essentially functions as the primary landowner and the local government.

This provides Disney with several advantages - among other things, if it wants to build a road or a new hotel, it can approve that project itself rather than going through the ordinary permitting process run by local Florida governments, though Disney still must comply with state building codes. This Reedy Creek arrangement also allows Disney to tax itself at a higher rate to pay for governmental services like sewage and a fire department -according to one analysis, property taxes on non-Disney landowners in Florida's Orange County could go up by as much as 25 percent if Disney loses its ability to tax itself.

Few Floridians, and, indeed, few major companies, receive this kind of benefit from their state. But the fact that Florida only plans to strip a special benefit from Disney - rather than, say, tossing its executives in prison - does not mean that it can punish Disney for its protected speech.

Think of it this way: Imagine that José owns a bar in Orlando. One day, José tells the local paper that he dislikes Ron DeSantis and plans to vote for DeSantis's opponent in the upcoming election. The next day, the state sends him a letter informing him that "because you disparaged our great governor, we are stripping your business of its liquor license."

José does not have a constitutional right to sell liquor for profit. And the overwhelming majority of Florida businesses do not have a license permitting them to do so. But if Florida strips José of his liquor license because the government disapproves of José's First Amendment-protected speech, it violates the Constitution.

Disney's ability to govern the Reedy Creek Improvement District is no different from Florida's hypothetical decision to take away José's liquor license. If Florida has a legitimate reason to strip away this benefit from Disney, the Constitution most likely would permit it to do so.

But no one can be punished because they express a political opinion.

Florida's best defense is to pretend they are punishing Disney for legitimate reasons

While existing law is crystal clear that the government may not sanction someone because it disagrees with their political views, First Amendment retaliation cases are often difficult to win because the plaintiff must prove that they were targeted because of their speech. As the Court explained in Hartman, such a plaintiff " must show a causal connection between a defendant's retaliatory animus and subsequent injury in any sort of retaliation action."

But in this case, the evidence that Florida targeted Disney because of its protected speech is overwhelming. DeSantis called upon Florida lawmakers to consider "termination" of Reedy Creek on Tuesday. On Wednesday, he sent a fundraising email to supporters where he denounced Disney for being "woke" and for criticizing him personally.

The email was explicit that DeSantis wants to punish Disney for its political views and because the governor believes that Disney is too close to the opposition party. "Disney and other woke corporations won't get away with peddling their unchecked pressure campaigns any longer," DeSantis said in his email. "If we want to keep the Democrat machine and their corporate lapdogs accountable, we have to stand together now."

By Thursday, both houses of the Florida legislature had passed legislation retaliating against Disney. That's also the same day that DeSantis's lieutenant governor, Jeanette Nunez, told Newsmax's Eric Bolling that the state could reverse course if Disney stopped producing art that the Florida government finds objectionable.

Newsmax host Eric Bolling: "Is there an opportunity for Disney to change their mind and say we will disregard this whole 'woke' agenda...and would the governor then say, 'fine, you can keep your status but we're gonna keep an eye on you now'?"

Florida Lt. Gov: "Sure!" pic.twitter.com/5E8UKGDVjF
- Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) April 21, 2022

Disney, Florida's second-highest-ranking government official informed Bolling, is being targeted because it has "changed what they really espouse." Nunez complained that Disney used to support "family values" but that it now produces art that emphasizes topics that Nunez deems "very inappropriate.'

And yet, despite this and other evidence indicating that the Florida government is retaliating against Disney because it criticized the governor's policies and produced works of art that high-ranking government officials find objectionable, there is a possibility that the Republican-controlled federal judiciary will give DeSantis a pass - much as it did when former President Donald Trump committed a similar violation of the First Amendment.

As a presidential candidate, Trump bragged about his plans to bring about a "total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on." Such a proposal violates the First Amendment's safeguards against religious discrimination.

After Trump was criticized for this unconstitutional proposal, he changed his rhetoric slightly. Instead of calling for an explicit ban on Muslim migration to the United States, Trump said he would disguise the ban by targeting countries with large Islamic populations. "People were so upset when I used the word Muslim," Trump told NBC's Meet the Press in 2016, "and I'm okay with that, because I'm talking territory instead of Muslim."

And yet, in Trump v. Hawaii (2018), the Court's Republican majority permitted Trump to ban travel from several majority-Muslim nations - even after Trump confessed his plans to give his Muslim ban a patina of legitimacy by presenting it as a ban on travel from certain foreign nations. The majority opinion in Hawaii leaned heavily into the fact that the Trump administration offered a national security justification for the policy that "says nothing about religion."

The Trump administration's proclamation announcing this travel ban, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the Court's Republicans, "is expressly premised on legitimate purposes: preventing entry of nationals who cannot be adequately vetted and inducing other nations to improve their practices." And the Court accepted this national security justification for the policy, despite considerable evidence that the Trump administration came up with this justification as a pretext to justify religious discrimination.

In the likely event that Disney raises a First Amendment challenge against Florida, Florida's lawyers will undoubtedly spin a similar narrative to the one that the Trump administration came up with in Hawaii. Though those lawyers won't be able to claim that abolishing Reedy Creek is justified by national security concerns, their brief will undoubtedly offer legitimate-sounding policy justifications for punishing Disney - some of which may actually be persuasive. There are, after all, plenty of legitimate reasons why a for-profit corporation shouldn't be allowed to exercise governmental authority.

A Republican judiciary may uphold DeSantis's attacks on Disney by claiming that Florida's government was motivated by legitimate concerns about giving Disney so much control over the Reedy Creek Improvement District, much as the Supreme Court thumbed its nose at the evidence in Hawaii that Trump was motivated by anti-Muslim animus.

But, again, if the courts follow what the law says, it doesn't matter if there are legitimate reasons why Florida could have chosen to strip Disney of a valuable government benefit. What matters is whether Florida targeted Disney because it disapproves of the company's First Amendment-protected speech.

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Ron DeSantis's attack on Disney obviously violates the First Amendment

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At the urging of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, the Florida legislature voted this week to punish one of the world's biggest producers of entertainment and pop culture, because DeSantis and his fellow Florida Republicans disagreed with that producer's First Amendment-protected speech. DeSantis signed the bill into law on Friday.

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The conflict between DeSantis and Disney arose after Disney denounced Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law, an unconstitutional law which allows parents to sue their local school district if topics such as sexual orientation or gender identity are mentioned in the classroom. The law is unconstitutional because it is so vaguely drafted that teachers cannot determine what kinds of instruction are permitted and what kinds are forbidden — although it remains to be seen whether a federal judiciary dominated by Republican appointees will strike the law down.