An entranceway to Walt Disney World on February 08, 2023 in Orlando, Florida.
Joe Raedle | Getty Images
A judge on Friday denied Disney‘s bid to dismiss or pause a state court lawsuit related to its bitter feud with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis over control of a special tax district around the corporate’s Orlando theme park.
The ruling within the state-level case is separate from Disney’s ongoing federal lawsuit accusing DeSantis and his allies of waging a political retaliation campaign against the entertainment giant over its opposition to a controversial classroom bill last 12 months.
“Today’s decision has no bearing on our lawsuit in federal court to vindicate Disney’s constitutional rights, and we’re fully confident Disney will prevail in each the federal and state cases,” a Disney spokesperson said in an announcement Friday afternoon.
The protracted battle between Disney, one among Florida’s largest employers, and DeSantis, a high-profile contender for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, is being fought on multiple battlefields.
Within the two lawsuits, it currently centers on the special tax district that had allowed Disney’s Orlando-area parks to effectively self-govern their operations because the Sixties.
However the clash began last 12 months, when Disney denounced laws in Florida that limited classroom discussion of gender identity and sexual orientation — dubbed “Don’t Say Gay” by critics. Soon after, DeSantis and his allies within the state’s GOP-led Legislature moved to dissolve Disney World’s special district.
The district, formerly often known as the Reedy Creek Improvement District, was ultimately left intact. But its name was modified to the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District, or CFTOD, and its five-member board of supervisors was replaced with figures picked by DeSantis himself.
Before that recent board took charge, Disney crafted and secured development deals that it says were aimed to guard its investments within the region. However the DeSantis-picked board cried foul, accusing Disney of thwarting its power.
The board voted in April to void those deals, and Disney sued in federal court, accusing DeSantis of orchestrating a “relentless campaign to weaponize government power.”
The CFTOD board countersued days later in state court. In May, Disney asked the court to dismiss that case, arguing partly that it was moot after DeSantis signed additional laws that voided the corporate’s development contracts.
In Friday’s ruling, Judge Margaret Schreiber disagreed.
The dispute over Disney’s contracts “won’t be resolved until a court of competent jurisdiction decides the difficulty in favor of 1 party or the opposite,” she wrote in a 14-page decision. “That issue is alive and energetic and has real-world consequences for each parties.”
DeSantis, whose political rhetoric is steeped within the language of conservative cultural warfare against “woke” issues, has kept up his attacks on Disney at the same time as his campaign appears to be under strain.
Once considered former President Donald Trump’s only real challenger within the GOP primary fight, DeSantis has handled sagging poll numbers and growing questions from even his allies about his campaign strategy.
