DeSantis Punishes the Magic Kingdom - Horowitz

DeSantis Punishes the Magic Kingdom - Horowitz

Governor Ron DeSantis’ bare-knuckled my way or the highway style of governance reached an apex last week, when he speeded through a measure to punish Florida’s largest employer, the Disney Company, for their after-the-fact criticism of a recently passed state law he championed.  

With DeSantis cracking the whip, it took only 3 short days from introduction to adoption for the Florida Legislature to reverse an agreement that had stood for 55 years allowing Disney to “self-govern” Walt Disney World and some of the surrounding area with the special tax privileges and responsibilities that go with it.

While there are certainly legitimate criticisms that can be made of Disney’s special arrangement with the State of Florida, given that the legislation was introduced only after the company criticized the “Parental Rights in Education” law, known by its opponents as the “Don’t Say Gay” law, it is evident that DeSantis’ main purpose was to retaliate against the Magic Kingdom. And DeSantis is doing nothing to hide his intent; in fact, he is boldly declaring it.  

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“I am not comfortable having one company with their own government and special privileges, when that company has pledged itself to attacking the parents in my state," the governor told Laura Ingraham at a televised town hall the Fox News host conducted in Orlando. "When that company has very high up people talking about injecting pansexualism into programing for young kids, it's wrong. Walt Disney would not want that. And so get back to the mission. Do what you did great. That's why people love the company, and you've lost your way. Maybe this will be the wakeup call that they need to get back on track." 

The governor’s communications director, Taryn Fenske, joined in the frontal assault on Disney. Speculating that the company may be funding a lawsuit against the “Don’t Say Gay” law, she said, “To the extent that Disney has funded these efforts, parents beware: the dollars you spend to make little boys’ and girls’ dreams come true are being used to sexualize your children in school.”

Disney is, of course, not attacking Florida parents or funding the sexualization of children in school. The company, along with many other individuals, is simply opposing a law championed by DeSantis. In this case, it is an ill-advised law that even if one wanted to give the governor a benefit of the doubt he has not earned is a solution searching for a problem.

The “Parental Rights in Education” law prohibits classroom discussion on sexual orientation or gender identity in kindergarten through 3 and for higher grades “in a manner that is not age or developmentally appropriate.” The law explicitly states that parents who believe this law is being violated can sue school districts and recover damages. 

Since there is no sex education curriculum in Florida for the early elementary school years and no evidence beyond a few anecdotes that have been produced that teachers are having these kinds of conversations in any way that would be harmful--if they are having them at all-- the law’s main impact will be to stigmatize and single out children with gay, lesbian or transgender parents.  After all, if the real concern was premature discussions of sexuality, the law could have been written more generally.

Additionally, the not very subtle implication of the law and the rhetoric used by its supporters is that there are a bunch of Florida elementary school teachers who are so-called “groomers’ indoctrinating children.   These fantasies play well with a segment of the Republican base whom DeSantis is cultivating for a potential presidential run, including giving a nod and a wink to QAnon conspiracy believers.  But this law solves no real problem.

This makes DeSantis’ move to punish Disney all the more egregious.  In terms of the impact on Disney of the governor’s hastily-written measure, however, the Magic Kingdom may have the last laugh.  To dissolve the self-governing entity, known as the Reedy Creek Improvement District, the plain language of the original agreement says that the state will have to first make the bondholders whole and that means the state of Florida would first need to shell out $1 billion or so.  Even if this contract language could be worked around, the implementation of the law in June 2023--the date it is scheduled to go into effect--would mean large property tax increases for residents of the surrounding counties and their assumption of a large amount of debt.  Further, constitutional law experts believe the law is a blatant violation of the 1st amendment and if challenged in court is likely to be declared so.

Still for Ron DeSantis’ short-term political fortunes, even if the effort to punish Disney ends up falling short, it remains a win.  The Republican party that believed in limited government, a robust free market, and that society was too litigious no longer exists.  DeSantis has likely correctly bet that using the power of the state to take it to a “woke corporation” even one as popular as Disney because they oppose him on a hot button cultural issue--- even if his solution to it solves no real-world problem-- will resonate with a slice of voters’ he needs to win the Republican presidential nomination.

This, unfortunately, tells us everything we need to know about how far a once great political party has fallen.