(The Center Square) — The Walt Disney Company has filed an amended complaint earlier this month against Gov. Ron DeSantis and other state officials over what the company says is a violation of its First Amendment rights.
This bill adds several other bills passed by the Florida Legislature to its original constitutional challenge filed by Disney in April, which says that DeSantis and his “allies” targeted Disney after the company made a public statement about the Parental Rights in Education Act, otherwise known as the “Don’t Say Gay Bill” by its opponents.
On Thursday, Disney announced that it would forgo building a $1 billion campus in Lake Nora near Orlando.
In the most recent complaint filed on May 8, Disney notes several pieces of legislation that the company is challenging as unconstitutional, including Senate Bill 4C, House Bill 9B and SB 1604. The complaint also challenges the findings of the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District that declared Disney’s contracts as “void and unenforceable.”
The bills collectively undo the Reedy Creek District, with SB 4C stating that “any independent special district established by a special act prior to the date of ratification of the Florida Constitution on November 5, 1968, and which was not re-established, re-ratified, or otherwise reconstituted by a special act or general law after November 5, 1968, is dissolved effective June 1, 2023.”
HB 9B essentially hands control of the district back to the state and undoes the company’s self-governing authority, while revising board member salaries, the boards’ powers and the powers of the district. SB 1604 revises the use of land and development regulations.
The Reedy Creek Improvement District was created in 1967 and covers 27,000 acres in Osceola and Orange counties that contain Disney World’s parks. The deal gave Disney huge tax advantages while allowing the company to act autonomously, with control over its own law enforcement and fire services.
In the April complaint, Disney stated that there was a “targeted campaign of government retaliation” by DeSantis, to “punish” the company for exercising its First Amendment rights when it opposed HB 1557. The bill reinforces the rights of parents in the education of their children and prohibits schools from teaching students about sexual identity and transgender issues in the classroom from Pre-K through eighth grade.
Disney stated that the bill was not only a hot topic of discussion in Florida, but across the country, as those in the LGBTQ+ community felt attacked by the legislation.
“As a Florida corporation and taxpayer with tens of thousands of Florida-based employees, Disney took an interest in the bill. On March 9, the then-CEO of Disney’s parent company, The Walt Disney Company, called Governor DeSantis personally to express the Company’s concern,” Disney said in the complaint, adding that DeSantis told the company to not get involved.
The April complaint also states that DeSantis had unconstitutionally used the state’s oversight board to “void” certain contracts worth billions of dollars to the company and thousands of jobs for Floridians. Disney stated that DeSantis did not consider the governing structure of Reedy Creek until Disney expressed its opinion on state legislation, alleging that the company was then punished by the state for doing so.
“Disney has never wanted a fight with the Florida government. The Company sought to de-escalate the matter for nearly a year, trying several times to spark a productive dialogue with the DeSantis Administration. To no avail,” The complaint states.
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