It’s been more than one year, and the raging battle between The Walt Disney Company and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is showing no signs of slowing down. Since their fight began, the governor has stripped Disney World of its right to self-govern, threatened to build a prison next to the Resort, signed laws to undo prior land deals Disney made, and signed a law that put Disney’s monorail under state safety inspections. He has also said that all other Walt Disney World rides and attractions will come under state inspection guidelines. Universal Orlando and SeaWorld will not be subject to the new law.
Disney, for its part, remained relatively silent as the governor railed against them. However, that silence came to an end on April 26. That’s when Disney World announced that it was suing the governor. Disney claims that the governor is retaliating against them because they simply spoke out against a controversial bill. Disney is even using the governor’s own memoir against him. In his book, the governor talks about going after Disney because they said things that he didn’t appreciate.
Many legal experts have said that DeSantis doesn’t have much of a leg to stand on when it comes to the lawsuit. Especially since Governor DeSantis has bragged about his attacks on the House of Mouse. However, the governor doesn’t appear to feel the same way.
Governor DeSantis recently sat down for an interview with Newsmax and spoke about his fight against Mickey Mouse. Specifically mentioning that Disney hasn’t mentioned the Parental Rights Bill since he took away Disney’s right to self-govern.
The big issue with Disney was they exercised a lot of political influence in this town.
And they tried to fight us on things like parents’ rights and things that are really important to the people of Florida. We beat them on that. We signed a parents’ rights bill and we’ve expanded protections and we’ve done a lot of stuff to go back and fight woke ideology.
Since our skirmish last year, Disney has not been involved in any of those issues. They have not made a peep. That ultimately is the most important – that Disney is not allowed to pervert the system to the detriment of Floridians.
In addition to suing the governor, Disney is also suing the Central Florida Tourism Oversight Committee. The Committee is the new board overseeing the Reedy Creek Improvement District. The new board has countersued Disney.
Governor DeSantis has said that he feels that the lawsuit filed against him by Disney World is a political one. However, he does not think that the actions he has taken against Disney are political. It is expected that DeSantis will soon announce his candidacy for President, and this fight is expected to be used by him as a win. His opponents are already using the fight with Disney against him.