If a judge looks at this from an unbiased perspective, I think it's pretty clear that DeSantis' actions toward Disney were in retaliation for Disney's political speech. But DeSantis' side is likely to argue that they had good reasons besides Disney's speech to take these actions, and if it did, its actions were not unconstitutional restrictions on Disney's free speech. Thus, I don't think it's as cut and dried as this article makes it out to be, especially as DeSantis kind of gave mixed reasons for his actions, suggesting that a business like Disney shouldn't enjoy the special status that it has when no other business in FL does.
But I do agree with the premise that Disney should win this lawsuit, and it is downright unamerican and antithetical to free speech for a politician to be able to use the resources of government to attack a private company for that company's political speech.
When the Walt Disney Co. went looking for evidence to feature in its new lawsuit against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, its lawyers found much of what they needed in DeSantis’s own recently published memoir.
Buried in Disney’s complaint against DeSantis is something surprising. Numerous quotes taken from “The Courage to be Free” appear to support the company’s central allegation: that the Republican governor improperly wielded state power to punish Disney’s speech criticizing his policies, violating the First Amendment.
Memoirs by presidential aspirants often lay out a blueprint for their coming candidacies. DeSantis’s does, too. It boasts extensively about his war on Disney to advertise how he would marshal the powers of the presidency against so-called woke elites.
Disney’s lawsuit cites exactly these passages. DeSantis — who signed a law taking control of Disney’s special self-governing district, and moved to nullify the company’s efforts to work around it — repeatedly flaunts the truth: These were retaliation against Disney for opposing his “don’t say gay” law limiting classroom discussion of sex and gender.
DeSantis’s book brags about his rapid mobilization of the state legislature to target Disney’s tax district. The same passage declares that this happened because of the company’s “support of indoctrinating young schoolchildren in woke gender identity politics.” That admits to retribution against speech opposing his legislation.
The book rips Disney for vowing to work to repeal the governor’s law, describing this as “a frontal assault” on it. That, too, is a description of political speech. Yet the book menacingly declares that, after this, “things got worse for Disney,” and that it would “soon find out” the truth about Florida’s war with Disney, i.e., the state would punish that speech.
The book describes DeSantis’s discussions with Republicans in the Florida legislature about whether they were prepared to tackle the “thorny issue involving the state’s most powerful company.” That confirms Disney was the unique target of legislative action.
In a companion to the book’s launch, DeSantis wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed that explicitly discussed governmental actions against Disney as an effort to “fight back” against its “woke ideology,” which is to say, its political speech.
This is unusual, says Scott Wilkens, senior counsel at the Knight First Amendment Institute. In such lawsuits, Wilkens notes, you “often have to make inferences” about the motives driving government officials.
That makes DeSantis’s admissions remarkable. “You have pretty clear statements from Governor DeSantis that he is seeking to punish a corporation for its speech,” Wilkens told me. “That’s prohibited by the First Amendment.”
Sure, it seems pretty clear to me looking at it from that perspective. But I imagine the argument from DeSantis side will go something like this: that book is a publication piece to sway the electorate, not an official statement of policy; further, it was the legislature, not merely DeSantis, who took this action against Disney; Both DeSantis and the Legislature had these very good policy reasons for making this decision - that no other business enjoys these benefits, that this situation is not good for the people of FL for x,y,z reasons, etc.
So basically this is going to come down to the whim of the judges because they'll have arguments to latch onto for justification. We know from recent decisions of the Supreme Court that many GOP-appointed judges care not much at all for precedent or for people's rights when it doesn't fit their political agenda. This case could ultimately end up before the Supreme Court, and who among us trusts those more recently appointed judges to do the right thing when it goes against their politics?
To me, and to anyone being objective, it's pretty clear that DeSantis and the FL GOP is retaliating against Disney for political speech. But that doesn't mean they won't get away with it. It's scary and un-American and the #1 reason why I think DeSantis is not fit to govern - he puts his politics ahead of doing the right thing and defending our constitutional rights, all while saying exactly the opposite.
Killington Zone
You can checkout any time you like,
but you can never leave
"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function" =
F. Scott Fitzgerald
"There's nothing more frightening than ignorance in action" - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
In March, Disney called Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida “anti-business” for his scorched-earth attempt to tighten oversight of the company’s theme park resort near Orlando. Last month, when Disney sued the governor and his allies for what it called “a targeted campaign of government retaliation,” the company made clear that $17 billion in planned investment in Walt Disney World was on the line.
“Does the state want us to invest more, employ more people, and pay more taxes, or not?” Robert A. Iger, Disney’s chief executive, said on an earnings-related conference call with analysts last week.
On Thursday, Mr. Iger and Josh D’Amaro, Disney’s theme park and consumer products chairman, showed that they were not bluffing, pulling the plug on a nearly $1 billion office complex that was scheduled for construction in Orlando. It would have brought more than 2,000 jobs to the region, with $120,000 as the average salary, according to an estimate from the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity.
The project, known as the Lake Nona Town Center, was supposed to involve the relocation of more than 1,000 employees from Southern California, including most of a department known as Imagineering, which works with Disney’s movie studios to develop theme park attractions. Most of the affected employees complained bitterly about having to move — some quit — but Disney largely held firm, partly because of a Florida tax credit that would have allowed the company to recoup as much as $570 million over 20 years for building and occupying the complex.
When he announced the project in 2021, Mr. D’Amaro cited “Florida’s business-friendly climate” as justification.
Mr. D’Amaro’s tone in an email to employees on Thursday was notably different. He cited “changing business conditions” as a reason for canceling the Lake Nona project. “I remain optimistic about the direction of our Walt Disney World business,” Mr. D’Amaro said in the memo. He noted that $17 billion was still earmarked for construction at Disney World over the next decade — growth that would create an estimated 13,000 jobs. “I hope we’re able to,” he said.
Democratic Rep. Anna Eskamani, who represents the Orlando area in the Florida House, released a statement blaming the governor for the lost jobs.
“Governor Ron DeSantis is a job killing moron who cares more about his own political ambitions and culture wars than Florida and our future,” Eskamani said. “According to him, ‘woke makes you go broke’ but this is another example of how it’s actually the complete opposite.
I remember reading Fahrenheit 451 in grade school and thinking how far fetched it was and thank goodness we live in the U.S.A. where this stuff cannot happen. I wonder if that's one of the banned books now?
easyrider16 wrote: ↑Feb 16th, '24, 06:59
I remember reading Fahrenheit 451 in grade school and thinking how far fetched it was and thank goodness we live in the U.S.A. where this stuff cannot happen. I wonder if that's one of the banned books now?
XtremeJibber2001 wrote: ↑Mar 28th, '24, 08:52
My take is the settlement nearly brings everything back to the way it was before DeSantis inserted himself.
Disney and DeSantis have settled their yearslong dispute
I wasn't sure of this and didn't really want to spend the time looking into the details, but it seems to make sense. Both sides got what they wanted - DeSantis got to make a big political point to win him some points with his base, and Disney got to set things basically back to the way they were. It would also make sense that DeSantis would sort of give up the battle considering he's no longer running for president.
All in all, it fits with what this seems to have been - a politically motivated attack that cost taxpayer resources with virtually no gain, just so the politician could get attention and support from voters. Gross.