Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and the board of supervisors have decided to countersue Disney in a long-running dispute over the authority of the entertainment giant’s central Florida theme park. The board met on Monday morning and passed a motion to take legal action against Disney, with the lawsuit expected to be filed at a state court later in the day.
Martin Garcia, chair of the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District, stated that ‘Disney sued us, we have no choice now but to respond.’ Disney filed a lawsuit against the governor last week, claiming that he orchestrated a ‘targeted campaign of government retaliation’ against the company that violates its free speech rights.
Disney is challenging the legality of a new board appointed by DeSantis to govern the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District, which houses the Walt Disney World resort. The dispute began after Disney criticized Florida’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill, which initially prohibited education about sexual orientation and gender identity for students aged nine and under, and was recently expanded to cover all grades.
DeSantis, who is considered a potential Republican candidate for president, seeks to exert more government control over Disney’s Orlando-based theme parks after the company expressed opposition to the bill early last year.
The clash has sparked criticism from even some Republicans, including US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who said that DeSantis should ‘sit down and negotiate’ with the company. GOP presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy also criticized DeSantis on NBC’s ‘Meet the Press’, stating that he ‘really lost it here’ and had ‘gone on the wrong path.’
The clash was even mentioned at President Joe Biden’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner, where he joked, ‘I had a lot of Ron DeSantis jokes ready, but Mickey Mouse beat the hell out of me and got to them first.’ Disney opened the Walt Disney World in Florida in 1971 and is one of the state’s biggest employers.
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