The Walt Disney Company sued Florida governor Ron DeSantis and other state leaders on Wednesday, alleging that they are involved in a “targeted campaign of government retaliation” against the company for publicly criticizing a controversial education law last year.
The 77-page lawsuit accuses state leaders of weaponizing government power against Disney in “as clear a case of retaliation as this Court is ever likely to see.”
The lawsuit was filed shortly after a DeSantis-appointed board overseeing the special district that includes Disney World voted to nullify two agreements that a previous Disney-controlled board made, handing control of development over to Disney.
During a press conference last week, DeSantis said the previous board’s agreements with Disney weren’t legal, and were in “direct defiance of the will of the people of Florida.” Florida law allows the legislature to revoke development agreements, DeSantis said. Lawmakers in the Florida House and Senate then unveiled bills to do just that.
The governor also made a series of not-so-subtly-veiled threats about what his new board could do with control over the Reedy Creek Improvement District, including: raising taxes on Disney to pay off debts faster, prohibiting policies mandating mask-wearing, creating more workforce housing, requiring anti-child-trafficking warnings inside Disney’s resorts, selling off the district’s utilities, and even building another amusement park or a new state prison in Disney’s backyard.
Disney’s complaint, filed in federal court, targets DeSantis, the five members of the DeSantis-appointed special district board, and other state officials.
“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.
“Today’s action is the latest strike: At the Governor’s bidding, the State’s oversight board has purported to ‘void’ publicly noticed and duly agreed development contracts, which had laid the foundation for billions of Disney’s investment dollars and thousands of jobs,” the lawsuit continues. “This government action was patently retaliatory, patently anti-business, and patently unconstitutional. But the Governor and his allies have made clear they do not care and will not stop.”
A DeSantis spokesman took aim at the lawsuit on Twitter.
“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,” Jeremy Redfern, the governor’s deputy press secretary, tweeted. “This lawsuit is yet unfortunate example of their hope to undermine the will of the Florida voters and operate outside the bounds of the law.”
On Disney’s recently filed lawsuit: pic.twitter.com/EEtPcEAs4j
— Jeremy Redfern (@JeremyRedfernFL) April 26, 2023
The DeSantis administration first went to battle with Disney last year after the company publicly denounced the state’s new Parental Rights in Education bill. The bill prohibits the teaching of sexual orientation and gender identity in public schools to students in kindergarten through third grade. Opponents labeled it the “Don’t Say Gay” bill.
After receiving pressure from Disney employees, then-CEO Bob Chapek said that the company’s leaders were opposed to the bill “from the outset,” and Disney declared that the legislation “should never have passed and should never have been signed into law.” The company suspended political donations in Florida as an act of protest.
Last April, DeSantis retaliated by signing a bill that stripped Disney of its 56-year-old “independent special district” status, which had granted it the privilege of creating its own regulations, building codes, and other municipal services.
Lawmakers later decided against dissolving the district, but voted instead to give the governor the power to appoint the district’s board members.
However, before the DeSantis-appointed board took over in March, the Disney-controlled board handed control of the district’s development over to Disney.
At his press conference last week in Lake Buena Vista, Disney’s mailing address, DeSantis said that in making the agreements, Disney was essentially negotiating with itself to prevent the state from taking control of development in the district.
“That’s not going to work,” he said. “That’s not going to fly.”
Disney, he said, is “going to live under the same laws as everybody else, pay their fair share of taxes, and honor the debts that they’ve accumulated over these years.”
On Wednesday, the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District Board of Supervisors officially voted to void the Disney-controlled board’s agreements with the company. Disney called foul.
“Governor DeSantis and his allies paid no mind to the governing structure that facilitated Reedy Creek’s successful development until one year ago, when the Governor decided to target Disney,” the lawsuit states. “There is no room for disagreement about what happened here: Disney expressed its opinion on state legislation and was then punished by the State for doing so.”
The lawsuit noted that Florida state Representative Randy Fine, who sponsored a House bill to revoke Disney’s development agreements, acknowledged that the legislation “does target one company. It targets the Walt Disney Company.”
The lawsuit claims that “for more than half a century, Disney has made an immeasurable impact on Florida and its economy.” It has turned Central Florida into a top global tourist attraction, is one of the region’s largest taxpayers, one of the state’s largest employers, and “is an unparalleled engine for economic growth in the State.”
“Disney regrets that it has come to this,” the lawsuit states of Wednesday’s legal action. “But having exhausted efforts to seek a resolution, the Company is left with no choice but to file this lawsuit to protect its cast members, guests, and local development partners from a relentless campaign to weaponize government power against Disney in retaliation for expressing a political viewpoint unpopular with certain State officials.”