Disney sues Florida governor Ron DeSantis

[Polds4OSU]

Disney sues Florida governor Ron DeSantis

In a lawsuit filed on Wednesday, Disney alleges it has been the target of "government retaliation".

news.yahoo.com

Disney has accused Florida Governor Ron DeSantis of organising a campaign of "government retaliation" in a lawsuit.

The new legal action sharply escalates the battle between the entertainment giant and the Republican politician.

The two sides have been fighting since Disney criticised a state law banning discussion of sexual orientation or gender identity in primary schools.

The lawsuit came after state officials voided a development deal involving the firm's Florida theme park.

Disney said Mr DeSantis' steps to assert control over its operations threatened its business and violated its constitutional rights.

It asked the court to undo the moves.

"Disney regrets it has come to this," the company's parks division said in the lawsuit, filed in federal court in Florida.

"But having exhausted efforts to seek a resolution, the company is left with no choice but to file this lawsuit to protect its cast members, guests, and local development partners from a relentless campaign to weaponise government power against Disney in retaliation for expressing a political viewpoint unpopular with certain state officials."

Mr DeSantis - who is currently abroad on a round-the-world tour - has previously cast the state's moves as efforts to remove special perks for a company that were no longer in the public interest.

At one point he said the state would not "bend a knee to woke executives in California".

"We are unaware of any legal right that a company has to operate its own government or maintain special privileges not held by other businesses in the state," his communications director Taryn Fenske said in response to the lawsuit.

"The lawsuit is yet another unfortunate example of their hope to undermine the will of the Florida voters and operate outside the bounds of the law."

 

[TheMonkey]

"The lawsuit is yet another unfortunate example of their hope to undermine the will of the Florida voters and operate outside the bounds of the law."

If this were the case, couldn’t Florida put it to a vote of the people? A referendum instead of executive action? Otherwise, Disney is undermining the will of the governor, not the Florida voters.

 

[Polds4OSU]

Here is a Hint. If you keep getting sued over your policy and executive actions and you keep going in front of a judge and they keep shooting them down as Illegal, Then you might want to reconsider your Executive actions or Policies more carefully in the future before making them happen in order to claim political victory and then watch the measure fail and be removed while using taxpayer money to try to defend it in court.

Disney v. DeSantis judge called Florida governor's law 'dystopian'

WILMINGTON, Delaware (Reuters) -When attorneys for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis appear in court to defend against Walt Disney Co's lawsuit that accuses the Republican official of weaponizing state government, they will see a familiar face, if not always a welcome one. U.S. District Judge Mark...

www.yahoo.com

WILMINGTON, Delaware (Reuters) -When attorneys for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis appear in court to defend against Walt Disney Co's lawsuit that accuses the Republican official of weaponizing state government, they will see a familiar face, if not always a welcome one.

US District Judge Walker in Tallahassee has struck down several laws that defined DeSantis' conservative political agenda, including statutes that sought to limit the speech of college professors, curtailed protests and restricted voting access.

Walker was nominated to the federal court by former President Barack Obama, a Democrat.

Disney sued DeSantis on Wednesday to block a state law that created an oversight board that Disney said will interfere with billions of dollars of planned development.

The feud between the global entertainment giant and a likely candidate for the 2024 presidential election started last year, when Disney criticized a law signed by DeSantis that banned classroom instruction on gender identity and sexual orientation for younger children.

Disney alleges a law that imposed an oversight board was punishment for voicing opposition to DeSantis' classroom instruction law known as the Parental Rights in Education Act.

The company called the state's actions "particularly offensive here due to the clear retaliatory and punitive intent."

The gender-education statute, derided by critics as the "Don't Say Gay" law, survived challenges in federal court before a different judge.

Free speech has been central to several rulings by Walker against DeSantis, although the judge has also at times sided with the governor.

Walker blocked the Individual Freedom Act or Stop Woke Act, which limited the speech of college professors, calling it "positively dystopian" in an opinion that began with a quote from George Orwell's anti-totalitarian novel "1984."

In 2021, Walker blocked the Combating Public Disorder Act, which DeSantis signed into law after the 2020 protests over the murder of George Floyd, a Black man, at the hands of police.

Walker ruled the law's expansion of the definition of "riot" infringed on protesters' right to free speech.

The judge last year enjoined a law signed by DeSantis that banned ballot drop boxes and prevented groups from offering food and water to voters waiting in long lines, causes championed by Democrats as a way to support voter turnout.

The judge also sided with plaintiffs in a second lawsuit challenging a different aspect of the Stop Woke Act, which defined as "unlawful employment practices" workplace training around issues of race and sex.

Walker said Florida had become a place where the First Amendment allowed, rather than prevented, the state to limit speech. Or as he put it, "in the popular television series Stranger Things, the 'upside down' describes a parallel dimension containing a distorted version of our world. Recently, Florida has seemed like a First Amendment upside down."

The judge has also ruled with DeSantis and declined to block the execution of a death row inmate and dismissed some claims against the governor over the Individual Freedom Act.

 

[Okstatekerr]

Here is a Hint. If you keep getting sued over your policy and executive actions and you keep going in front of a judge and they keep shooting them down as Illegal, Then you might want to reconsider your Executive actions or Policies more carefully in the future before making them happen in order to claim political victory and then watch the measure fail and be removed while using taxpayer money to try to defend it in court.

That would require a level of self-awareness that most politicians on either side just don't seem to have anymore.

 

[Stillwater Townie]

There are sore losers and then there are sore winners. Desantis is a sore winner. He should know better after winning against Disney than to continue picking on them being that it is Florida's biggest employer.