Taking a Dive in Florida to Own the Libs

DeSantis' latest move in his feud with Disney might be blatantly idiotic, but that might be the point.

How about that Disney and DeSantis feud?

To get you up to speed, you probably already know that Disney has had a long established presence within Florida. It’s the state’s largest employer, with Walt Disney World alone employing 80,000 people. Unquestionably, it’s a formidable economic engine, with its theme parks, hotels, and cruise lines drawing millions of tourists to the Sunshine State. Because of its status as the state’s golden goose, it has been largely immune from the legislative culture warring Governor DeSantis is making part of his brand. For example, when Florida passed a law ostensibly prohibiting social media companies from banning any candidate running for public office, it curiously exempted any social media company that just happened to also own at least 25 acres of a theme park. While the law was struck down on obvious First Amendment issues, the judge specifically noted the “theme park exception” only made the unconstitutional intent even more obvious.

That was the extent Florida politicians were willing to protect Disney from their culture war fist-fights. No more.

What changed recently is that Disney angered DeSantis and Republican legislators by putting out a statement opposing HB 1557, otherwise derisively referred to as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. Since then it has been all out war, with all your favorite right-wing culture warriors jumping into the fray. Chris Rufo pointed out that Disney has had employees arrested for child sex crimes every year of the last decade, apparently using the Chinese Cardiologist fallacy to imply the company has a uniquely high sex offender problem (Disney has almost 200k employees). Laura Ingraham broadcast a warning to Disney of sorts, suggesting that Republicans can take away privileges the company enjoys, such as copyright protection (OH GOD YES! PLEASE DO IT! DO IT!).

The latest battlefront is local administrative policy. Specifically the Reedy Creek Improvement District (RCID) where Walt Disney World is located, a few miles outside of Orlando. Sarah Rumpf has as astoundingly well-researched article if you want to dive into the weeds of this issue. RCID is a special district that has been around since 1967, but it apparently has not been such a hot button issue until last month. Special districts are very common across the United States, and they’re usually created to perform a narrow function, such as creating a water district to manage agricultural irrigation across multiple counties. Florida has 1,844 special districts.

RCID is basically run by Disney, which has its own employees on the Board of Supervisors. The district collects sales taxes to pay to both Orange and Osceola counties, levies taxes to fund local government functions (e.g. fire, water, waste, etc), maintains roads and infrastructure, and also contracts with the two counties for law enforcement. The property taxes the district collects come out of Disney’s wallet, so the only tangible benefit the district provides Disney is the autonomy, which isn’t insignificant.

But the effort to repeal the RCID appears to be laughably ill-conceived. Disney already pays property taxes to both counties, in addition to paying the RCID taxes. So erasing the RCID means Disney pays less in taxes. Not only that, but all the services that were previously covered or paid for by Disney’s money (cops, fire, water, waste, etc.) now become the responsibility of either counties. The counties would also have to absorb whatever debt the district has, which is currently a $2 billion bond debt. The counties are having a panic attack trying to figure out how the hell they’re exactly going to handle this financial catastrophe, estimating they’ll have to raise taxes by about 25%.

So in short: repealing RCID means Disney loses some autonomy over local development. In return, it gains a lower tax bill, far less responsibilities, and the erasure of a bond debt.

Nevertheless, the bill to repeal RCID has passed overwhelmingly, and now requires only DeSantis’ signature.

I recognize that a politician’s job description nowadays includes engaging in performative wrestling matches, at least as red meat to their base. But this endeavor seems so blatantly idiotic and plainly counter-productive that they could have accomplished the same theatrics without actually passing the law.

But I think I understand what might be happening. Republican legislators are not even trying to hide the fact that this law is blatantly in response to Disney’s criticism of DeSantis’ legislative agenda. In the process, they’re practically laying out the red carpet for any legal challenge to the law to be granted. Obviously on First Amendment grounds, but at this point you basically can take your pick. When Florida Lt. Governor Jeanette Nunez was interviewed about this, she was asked if Disney would have an opportunity to keep the RCID by changing course on its messaging, perhaps by repudiating its “woke agenda”, to which the response was an enthusiastic “Sure!” Congrats to Lt. Gov. Nunez for further solidifying the opposition’s legal case.

So in the end, the law will get thrown out by the courts but the Republicans who voted to legally retaliate against Disney will maintain the street cred with their base. They can say they tried their best, and that it’s only activist judges (perhaps in the pocket of Big Mouse) who got in the way. By then we’d likely have another shiny object to gawk at.