Disney Sues Ron DeSantis for Alleged Retaliation: 'Relentless Campaign to Weaponize Government Power'

Ron DeSantis.Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty

Disney is suingRon DeSantisamid the Florida governor’s ongoing attempts to strip power from one of the state’s largest private employers which owns its top tourist attraction.

On Wednesday, the company filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida, alleging that a state oversight board had, “at the governor’s bidding,” voted to void contracts made with Disney. The vote, the suit claims, “was patently retaliatory, patently anti-business, and patently unconstitutional,“WESHreports.

DeSantis' fight with Disney began in March 2022, after the company openly opposed the so-called"Don’t Say Gay” bill— an anti-LGBTQ+ measure the governor endorsed and signed into law that restricts classroom discussion around gender identity and sexual orientation.

Weeks after Disney issued a statement saying the bill “should never have passed and should never have been signed into law,” DeSantis asked state lawmakers to consider ending a deal between the company and Florida that, since 1967, has given it special privileges, including tax exemptions and certain autonomies like providing its own fire, police and other services such as building and maintaining roads.

State lawmakers voted in favor of stripping the company of its control of the district, and DeSantis signed the measure into law in February. But Disney appeared to outmaneuver the governor when it quietly took back control of the district that same month.

DeSantis then furthered his feud with the company, hosting a press conference last week in which he directed state lawmakers to invalidate the contracts that allowed Disney to control the district it’s controlled for more than 40 years.

This week, the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District’s board of supervisors did exactly that, meeting Wednesday morning to invalidate the set of agreements Disney made with Reedy Creek earlier this year.

“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,” Disney said in its suit, adding: “But the Governor and his allies have made clear they do not care and will not stop.”

Disney also referenced DeSantis' recent public remarks about the company, such as musing about building a private prison next to Disney World, opening a competing theme park near the property, or raising the company’s taxes and imposing harsher restrictions on theme park rides.

“The Governor recently declared that his team would not only ‘void the development agreement’—just as they did today—but also planned ‘to look at things like taxes on the hotels,’ ‘tolls on the roads,’ ‘developing some of the property that the district owns’ with ‘more amusement parks,’ and even putting a ‘state prison’ next to Walt Disney World,” the suit noted.

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Democrats have been unsurprisingly critical of DeSantis' now year-long fight with Disney, which produces a more-than $75.2 billion annual economic impact for Florida.

But some Republicans, too, are growing tired of DeSantis' fight with the company.

Former PresidentDonald Trumphas called the fight was “a political STUNT,” while former Vice PresidentMike Pencesaid in a recentinterviewthat the feud is “beyond the scope of what I as a conservative, limited-government Republican would be prepared to do.”

The criticism of DeSantis comes as the governor is reportedly weighing a presidential bid, which would pit him directly against Trump (and, possibly, Pence).

source: people.com