- Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill Friday to remove Disney’s status from self-governing status.
- He recently signed a controversial education law and proposed a map to redirect the area in favor of the Republican Party.
- One of Florida’s top lawmakers said the Disney bill diverted attention from the state’s redeployment plan.
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A senior U.S. lawmaker in Florida said he believed there was a hidden motive behind Gov. Ron Desantis to deprive Disney of its special tax status in ongoing feud over a controversial state education law called by advocates and critics of the Don’t Say Gay bill.
On Friday, DeSantis signed a bill that would abolish a special tax and management area – in which the landowners are mostly Walt Disney World – known as the Reedy Creek Improvement Area until June 2023.
But Senate Minority Leader Gary Farmer told Insider that DeSantis’ public dispute with Disney is diverting attention from other legislative programs the Florida governor has outlined – namely the new proposed redirection card that will give the Republican Party an advantage in the state. at the expense of black voters.
“Governor DeSantis’ attack on Disney was intended to act as a smokescreen for the much more insidious original and sole purpose of this special session, the adoption of a racist and unconstitutional plan to redirect the area,” Farmer said.
The termination bill came after Disney condemned controversial state legislation on parental rights in education. In a statement on March 28, the company promised to work actively for the repeal of the legislation, saying it “should never have been adopted and should never have been signed into law.”
In response, DeSantis said Disney “crossed the line” with its calls for repeal of the law, saying “this state is governed by the interests of the people of Florida” and not “by the demands of corporate executives in California.”
During a press conference at the signing of the bill on Friday, DeSantis said the US lawmaker saw the company’s exposure as a “provocation”.
“You are a corporation based in Burbank, California, and you will focus your economic power on attacking my state’s parents,” DeSantis said. “We see this as a provocation and we will fight against it.”
His sentiments were expressed by Lieutenant-Governor Janet Nunez. On Thursday, Newsmax presenter Eric Boling asked Nunes if the governor would reconsider repealing Disney’s special tax status if the company abandoned the “awakened” program, to which she replied: “Of course.”
The move to the dissolution of Reedy Creek marks the third legislative victory for DeSantis
In addition to enforcing the state’s controversial education law and subsequently punishing Disney for speaking out against the law, DeSantis has a series of legislative victories, including passing a redirection card that will reduce the number of predominantly black areas.
On March 28, the same day that DeSantis signed the state bill on parental rights in education, DeSantis vetoed a version of the congressional map approved by state lawmakers that would add two Republican seats and remove one Democrat, according to The New York times.
On Wednesday, the Florida Senate adopted a map of the Congress of DeSantis during a special session, which will instead create 20 possible Republican seats and leave eight for Democrats, writes The Times.
DeSantis claims that the existence of such areas was “racially exaggerated”, adding that the new congressional map drawn up by his office would be “racially neutral”.
“I mean, we’re not going to have a 200-mile herrimander who divides people based on their skin color,” DeSantis told CNN. “That’s wrong. That’s not the way we run in Florida.”
Despite major political and redeployment plans for DeSantis, Farmer said the governor, who is waging a war against Disney, is diverting media attention from the new proposed congressional map.
“On the same day that this measure was passed against Disney, the legislature also broke through an unconstitutional, illegal and racist plan to redirect the area, which halved Florida’s black representation in Congress,” Farmer said.
He added: “No one really expects this dissolution of Reedy Creek to actually happen, but the threat of sending the rights of black voters 50 years ago is very, very real, that’s what we all need to talk about today.
DeSantis did not respond immediately to Insider’s request for comment.
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