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(Photo by Ronda Churchill/Getty Images)
The DeSantis Dream Team has struck again! This morning the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District, AKA those goobers Governor Ron DeSantis put in charge of making sure Mickey Mouse doesn’t get any more woke ideas about criticizing him, voted to sue Disney for … something.
It’s not clear what their cause of action might be, nor is it clear where they intend to file it. But they definitely do not intend to file in federal court where Disney itself sued the board last week alleging five different Constitutional causes of action.
“We have no choice now but to respond,” CFTOD board chair Martin Garcia said of the motion passed this morning authorizing it to respond to Disney’s suit and file its own complaint. “We will seek justice in state court here in central Florida where both it and Disney do business. Yes, we’ll seek justice in our own backyard.”
The move represents the latest round in the cold war between the governor and the Mouse that is just turning hot. Last year after Disney offered mild criticism of DeSantis’s “Don’t Say Gay” law, the governor lost his shit and vowed to take revenge on “woke executives in California.” DeSantis, who was actually married at Disney World, had only months before ensured that his hilariously unconstitutional social media law would contain an exemption for any “company that owns and operates a theme park or entertainment complex.”
But last year he shifted gears and threw himself into the difficult work of persuading a judge to overturn a facially valid statute based on clear legislative intent to suppress First Amendment protected speech.
“When corporations try to use their economic power to advance a woke agenda, they become political, and not merely economic, actors. In such an environment, reflexively deferring to big business effectively surrenders the political battlefield to the militant left,” he wrote in an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal. “Leaders must stand up and fight back when big corporations make the mistake, as Disney did, of using their economic might to advance a political agenda. We are making Florida the state where the economy flourishes because we are the state where woke goes to die.”
DeSantis also wrote in his biography that, when Disney’s CEO approached him with complaints about the bill, he told him “You shouldn’t get involved[;] it’s not going to work out well for you.”
And his legislative allies were no more circumspect.
“Disney is learning lessons and paying the political price of jumping out there on an issue,” said state Sen. Joe Gruters.
“You kick the hornet’s nest, things come up,” said State Rep. Randy Fine during the legislative debate over the bill establishing the CFTOD. “And I will say this: You got me on one thing, this bill does target one company. It targets The Walt Disney Company.”
The bill purported to replace the board governing the special tax district created in 1967 to entice Walt Disney to turn 25,000 acres of worthless swampland into an economic engine for the state, with DeSantis’s cronies. But they were too busy plotting to make sure Goofy didn’t get any ideas about staging a drag brunch to pay attention to public notices. So there was no one there to object in February when the outgoing board quietly ceded most of its powers to the company.
The governor was hopping mad when he (eventually) figured it out, and he and the supine legislature come back to pass more laws authorizing CFTOD to repudiate the outgoing board’s contract. Meanwhile DeSantis and his allies were making wild threats to build a prison next to the park or conduct intrusive inspections to gum up the works, all while making it clear that none of this had anything to do with legitimate legislative purpose.
Last Thursday, the CFTOD board met and voted to repudiate the contract devolving powers to Disney, and within an hour, Disney filed suit alleging violations of the Contract Clause, Takings Clause, Due Process, and retaliation in violation of the First Amendment. The case landed on the docket of Judge Mark Walker, who previously enjoined DeSantis’s “Stop Woke Act” DEI ban. Naturally, DeSantis accused the company of “forum shopping” — it wasn’t.
So now the CFTOD plans to answer the company in state court.
“In essence, Disney is asking a federal court in Tallahassee to wrestle back the hands of time to 1967 while this board is instead charged legislatively, with bringing the district into the 21st century, with new and better policies and practices,” Garcia said, according to CNN.
What are the odds Disney’s lawyers have that motion to remove and consolidate already drafted?
DeSantis-aligned board votes to sue Disney [CNN]
Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics and appears on the Opening Arguments podcast.
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