Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis suggested that The Walt Disney Co. should be stripped of its “special privileges” in the state following its opposition to the new Parental Rights in Education law, dubbed by detractors as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill.
DeSantis appeared to be referring to a 1967 state law that created a special district around Walt Disney World, allowing the company to self govern many of its operations and development.
The governor told reporters on Thursday, “Someone said, ‘Hey, Disney has all these special perks. Should you retaliate against them for them coming out and demagoguing this bill?’ I don’t believe you ‘retaliate,’ but I think what I would say, as a matter of first principle, I don’t support special privileges in law. Just because a company is powerful and they have been able to wield a lot of power.”
After initially remaining publicly neutral as the bill made its way through the state legislature, Disney CEO Bob Chapek then announced the company’s opposition. This week, after DeSantis signed the bill into law, Disney issued a statement saying that the legislation “should never have passed and should never have been signed into law.”
“Our goal as a company is for this law to be repealed by the legislature or struck down in the courts, and we remain committed to supporting the national and state organizations working to achieve that,” the company said.
DeSantis has blasted the company since then. One Florida lawmaker, Spencer Roach, wrote on Twitter on Wednesday that lawmakers were discussing a repeal of the special district. “If Disney wants to embrace woke ideology, it seems fitting that they should be regulated by Orange County,” he wrote.
A spokesperson for Disney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In his press conference, DeSantis said that Disney has “lost a lot of pull that they used to have, and honestly, I think that is a good thing for our state. Because the state should be governed by the best interests of the people, you should not have one organization that is able to dictate policy in all these different realms, and they have done that for many many years. And if that stops now, which it should, that would be a good thing for Florida.”
He added, “I would say any special privileges that are in law, I would like to get rid of generally, but I think in this particular case with Disney, I just don’t think you have very many people in the legislature anymore who are going to be able defend a lot of what has been done over many many years to have them almost govern themselves over so many things.”
