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" for actions taken after the company publicly criticized an education law last year.
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, he said, and lawmakers are preparing a bill 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 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.
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.
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