A court challenge initiated by Disney against the board established by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to supervise development in and around Disney’s land in Florida has been dismissed by a federal judge appointed by President Trump. Disney argued that the creation of the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District infringed upon its First Amendment rights, alleging that it was a retaliatory measure due to their ongoing disputes with DeSantis over various legislative matters.
However, Judge Allen Winsor, serving in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida in Tallahassee, ruled in favor of dismissing Disney’s case. This information was reported by The New York Times.
Disney sued DeSantis claiming he waged a “relentless campaign to weaponize government power against Disney in retaliation for expressing a political viewpoint,” continuing that such a move by DeSantis “now threatens Disney’s business operations, jeopardizes its economic future in the region and violates its constitutional rights.”
The court’s decision affirmed that there was unquestionably a detrimental impact on the company due to the establishment of a new governing body responsible for overseeing the region in which Disney operated.
“This change — which works to Disney’s significant detriment — came after Disney publicly criticized another Florida law, the Parental Rights in Education Act. In Disney’s view, this timing was no coincidence. Disney alleges that the Florida Legislature changed the district’s governing structure to punish it for its speech. The issue in this case is whether the Legislature’s action constituted unlawful retaliation against Disney’s speech in violation of the First Amendment,” the ruling stated.
The ruling also said, “Disney lacks standing to sue the Governor or the Secretary, and its claims against the CFTOD Defendants fail on the merits because ‘when a statute is facially constitutional, a plaintiff cannot bring a free-speech challenge by claiming that the lawmakers who passed it acted with a constitutionally impermissible purpose,’” referring to the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District
It also stated that Disney “faces land-use decisions by a board over which it has no control,” but added that Disney “has not alleged facts showing that any imminent future appointments will contribute to its harm.”
“Disney has not alleged any specific actions the new board took (or will take) because of the Governor’s alleged control. In fact, Disney has not alleged any specific injury from any board action. Its alleged injury, as discussed above, is its operating under a board it cannot control. That injury would exist whether or not the Governor controlled the board, meaning an injunction precluding the Governor from influencing the board would not redress Disney’s asserted injury,” Winsor wrote.
In conclusion, the ruling stated that the Florida legislature had the power to take the actions that it did.
“As Disney appropriately acknowledges, the Legislature can determine the structure of Florida’s special improvement districts. Disney does not argue that the First Amendment (or anything else) would preclude the Legislature from enacting the challenged laws without a retaliatory motivation,” the ruling said.
“A law either explicitly singles out a specific group or it does not, and the laws here do not,” the ruling stated.
“Here, similarly, no one reading the text of the challenged laws would suppose them directed against Disney. The laws do not mention Disney. Disney is left to argue that we should go beyond the laws’ text and see what they do in operation.”
