DeSantis goes after Disney’s Reedy Creek Improvement District

MIAMI – Gov. Ron DeSantis’s effort to redefine the divisions of power in Florida could be an opportunity for retaliatory action against Disney.

A special legislative session, held from Tuesday to Friday, will allow state lawmakers to redraw Florida’s congressional map, the electoral divisions for the purpose of electing lawmakers.

On the first day of the special session, DeSantis asked the Florida legislature to get rid of some independent special districts. This includes the special district that state lawmakers created more than six decades ago to help Walt Disney World Resort run efficiently in the Orlando area.

“They will be considering the congressional map, but they also will be considering termination of all special districts that were enacted in Florida prior to 1968, and that includes the Reedy Creek Improvement District,” DeSantis said on Tuesday.

DeSantis warned on March 4th that he was going to veto the 28-district map that the Florida Senate had passed with bipartisan support before the veto.

DISNEY’S DISTRICT

Lawmakers established The Reedy Creek Improvement District on May 12, 1967, as a governing jurisdiction and special taxing district for an area within the outer limits of Orange and Osceola counties. It operates like a county government.

It’s a governing structure that made Walt Disney World responsible for the cost of establishing and maintaining municipal services and not the taxpayers of Orange and Osceola counties. It also created efficiency with land use.

Lawmakers at the time viewed it as an enduring public-private partnership designed to create jobs. The 19 property owners in Bay Lake, Lake Buena Vista, and unincorporated RCID select the district’s five-member board of supervisors, who are senior Walt Disney Company employees.

The residents, who are all Disney employees, elect the district’s officials who report to the board of supervisors.

CONFLICT WITH DISNEY

On March 22, groups of Disney employees from California to Florida participated in a walk-out protest against a proposed law that critics dubbed “The Don’t Say Gay” bill. The protest followed an open letter asking Disney executives to stand up against it.

“As a community, we have been forced into an impossible and unsustainable position and must now take action to convince [The World Disney Company] to protect employees and their families in the face of such open and unapologetic bigotry,” the letter reads.

Tensions between DeSantis and the Walt Disney Company started after DeSantis signed the controversial Parental Rights in Education Law on March 28, which will go into effect in July. The company criticized it as an attack on the LGBTQ+ community.

The Disney company pledged to support repeal efforts and to stand up “for the rights and safety of LGBTQ+ members of the Disney family, as well as the LGBTQ+ community in Florida and across the country,”

POLITICAL DIVIDE

After decades of mutually beneficial relationships between Disney and Florida governors, Disney’s political donations upset some Florida Republicans this year.

On March 30th, Florida State Rep. Spencer Roach threatened Disney: “Yesterday was the 2nd meeting in a week w/fellow legislators to discuss a repeal of the 1967 Reedy Creek Improvement Act, which allows Disney to act as its own government. If Disney wants to embrace woke ideology, it seems fitting that they should be regulated by Orange County.”

Roach’s “woke ideology” reference was in line with Florida State Rep. Matt Gaetz’s political discourse when he criticized “woketopians” at the 2020 Republican National Convention and when he berated Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin over alleged “woke-ism” in the military. In this context, the term derives from the values divide that has increasingly polarized U.S. politics during the last decade.

Meanwhile, in federal court, there are two map proposals that could be considered if the special session doesn’t produce a legal option. One of the maps is the one that the Florida Senate passed with bipartisan support, but DeSantis vetoed. Florida legislators are scheduled to vote o the redistricting map on Thursday.

Explore the proposed maps

• DeSantis’s deputy chief of staff J. Alex Kelly: P000C0109
• Sen. Shevrin Jones: S035C8060
• The Florida House Redistricting Committee: H000C8019
• The Florida House Redistricting Committee: H000C8015

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