The Walt Disney Co. filed an amended lawsuit against Florida governor Ron DeSantis after he moved to void a 30-year theme park development agreement.
In the latest round of a escalating battle between the company and the prospective presidential candidate, Disney cited some of DeSantis’ recent comments to make its case that the governor’s moves are retaliatory strikes due to its opposition last year to a parental rights legislation, also dubbed by detractors as the “don’t say gay” bill.
Disney’s amended complaint — read it here — opened with a DeSantis quote from last week, in which he said, “[T]his all started, of course, with our parents’ rights bill.”
The crux of Disney’s lawsuit is that DeSantis violated its constitutional rights by moving to dissolve the Reedy Creek Improvement District, the public entity that oversees its Florida resort property. Then, DeSantis championed state legislation that gave him the power to appoint the members of the special district board.
The amended lawsuit noted two more DeSantis-backed other actions: Legislation that gives the state oversight over monorail inspections, and another bill to ultimately void a Walt Disney World development agreement with the special district.
The 30-year agreement gives Disney World autonomy over what gets built on company property and surrounding land. The Reedy Creek special district approved the agreement in February, just weeks before DeSantis replaced Disney-supporting board members with his own appointees. But the DeSantis-selected members were apparently unaware of the existence of the agreement until a few weeks into their tenure, and then complained that pact greatly curtailed their power.
As commentators and political rivals like Donald Trump claimed that DeSantis had been upstaged by Disney, the governor vowed further board and state action to invalidate the development agreement, but also threatened a host of other moves. That included slapping additional taxes on the parks and installing tolls on roads leading up to the resort. DeSantis even floated the idea of constructing a state prison near the resort.
“The State’s actions over the last two weeks are the latest strikes,” Disney said in its amended complaint. “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. Days later, the State Legislature enacted and Governor DeSantis signed legislation rendering these contracts immediately void and unenforceable. These government actions were patently retaliatory, patently anti-business, and patently unconstitutional.”
The amended complaint comes two days before Disney’s next earnings call, scheduled for May 10.
The company also warned in its lawsuit that DeSantis may be making more moves.
“The Governor and his allies have made clear they do not care and will not stop,” the amended complaint stated. “The Governor recently declared that his team would not only ‘void the development agreement’ —just as the State has now done, twice—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. ‘Who knows? I just think the possibilities are endless,’ he said.”
In its original lawsuit, filed last month, Disney accused DeSantis of “a relentless campaign to weaponize government power.” The company claimed that the governor violated the First Amendment and the Constitution’s contracts clause in his effort to strike back against what he has called a “woke corporation.”
The amended complaint also noted that DeSantis continues to boast that his effort to silence the company is working, as Disney. lawyers referred to the governor’s comments in a Newsmax interview last week.
“Indeed, just days ago, reaffirming the unequivocal intent of his retribution campaign and trumpeting its perceived success, Governor DeSantis openly celebrated: ‘Since our skirmish last year, Disney has not been involved in any of those issues. They have not made a peep’,” the company’s attorneys stated in its complaint.
“This is as clear a case of retaliation as this Court is ever likely to see,” lawsuit stated.
Also named as defendants in Disney’s lawsuit are the DeSantis appointees to the board of the special district, renamed the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District. They voted last week to file a countersuit in state court against the company.
