Disney Defends DeSantis Lawsuit, Says Governor ‘Would Be Functionally in Charge of the New Weaponized Bureaucracy’

Disney has filed its response to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ June 26 motion to toss out Disney’s suit against the governor.

It might seem late, coming exactly a month later, but it was dictated by court schedules. It is the latest in a series of volleys between Disney and the presidential hopeful, with Disney summarily defending its right to sue DeSantis over control of its self-governing property outside of Orlando, Florida ,and what Disney sees as vindictive and retaliatory action by the governor.

“The Governor seeks to evade responsibility for his actions on a narrower ground, asserting that a governor cannot be held officially liable for implementing, administering, and enforcing state laws that punish residents for political statements violating a state-prescribed speech code,” the filing reads.

Elsewhere, the suit reads: “To be clear, Disney’s claim is not that the U.S. Constitution prohibits a state from establishing special districts with governor-appointed boards. The Constitution does, however, prohibit states from allocating government benefits and burdens on impermissible bases, including race, religion, and political viewpoint. In other words, Florida cannot decide which rights and privileges to confer on special districts based on their residents’ political viewpoints—just as it could not do so based on their residents’ race or religion.”

This whole thing started last year, when Bob Chapek made a belated and fairly tame case against DeSantis’ “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which he only issued after mass protests from Disney staff (known as “cast members”) and deep confusion from those outside the company. From then on, DeSantis has made it his goal to disparage and take action against Disney and for what he calls their “woke ideology” (which has since become a central platform for his wobbly presidential campaign).

This all came to a head earlier this year when DeSantis stripped Disney of its special oversight board, the Reedy Creek Improvement District. The Reedy Creek board oversaw a host of mundane matters, like infrastructure improvement and road construction, and before they were disbanded, to be replaced by a group appointed by DeSantis (who report directly to him), Disney made sure to pass a bunch of agreements that would have far-reaching implications and last well into the future. “By announcing that the District henceforth would be ‘state-controlled’ and a ‘state receivership,’ the Governor and his allies made clear that the Governor—the self-proclaimed ‘new sheriff in town’—would be functionally in charge of the new weaponized bureaucracy,” Disney’s new filing reads.

At this, DeSantis, who at the time of the initial feud was both trying to gain traction with his presidential campaign and also trying to sell a new book, struck back, asking that all of the agreements made before the installation of his own board (the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District) be voided. That was when Disney filed its own lawsuit, claiming that the Governor was acting in a retaliatory way. Disney actually used his book in the filing, citing it as an example of the vindictiveness: “Disney, of course, has been the central target of the Governor’s weaponized State—a retaliatory campaign he launched because, the Governor’s memoir declares, Disney ‘crossed a line’ by expressing the wrong view in a political debate, which he viewed as a “textbook example of when a corporation should stay out of politics.”

DeSantis filed to have Disney’s suit thrown out, and this is their response. “Because this suit seeks to enjoin the Governor from performing executive acts, legislative immunity does not protect him from suit,” the filing reads. Meaning that this protracted battle will keep on going.

Pamela Chelin contributed to this report.

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