(Orlando) Saying Governor Ron DeSantis followed the autocratic examples of governments in Russia and China, a group of mostly Republican former top officials called the Florida governor’s takeover of the district a Disney World of “seriously damaging the political, social and economic fabric of the State”.
The group of former governors, U.S. House members and presidential administration officials on Wednesday filed a “friend of the court” brief in Disney’s federal lawsuit against DeSantis and his associates. appointees to the Disney World District Board of Directors. Disney lawsuit says Republican governor violated company’s free speech rights by taking control of district after Disney publicly opposed Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law , which banned lessons about sexual orientation and gender identity in the early years of school.
The group’s purpose in filing the brief last week is to demonstrate “how the course chosen by the Governor is corrosive to the form of democracy envisioned by the Constitution, and to re-emphasize the essential constitutional role of this Court in combating the excesses of governance through retaliation,” they claimed in a court filing.
Specifically, the group says DeSantis’ actions are hurting Florida economically because companies are deterred from doing business in the state because they could be subject to retaliation from the governor if they ever disapprove of his policies. The group noted that Disney had scrapped plans for a billion-dollar campus in Orlando that would have displaced 2,000 employees from Southern California, after a year of attacks by DeSantis.
The group is made up of two former Republican Party governors, Christine Todd Whitman of New Jersey and Arne Carlson of Minnesota; three former Republican members of the United States House of Representatives, Tom Coleman of Missouri, Claudine Schneider of Rhode Island, and Christopher Shays of Connecticut; and a host of lawyers, commissioners, chiefs of staff and other officials from previous Democratic and Republican presidential administrations.
DeSantis’ actions were retaliatory in an effort to discourage Disney and other institutions from opposing his policies in the future, officials said, who likened the takeover to autocratic actions taken in Russia and in China.
DeSantis, a candidate for the 2024 Republican Party presidential nomination, is seeking dismissal of Disney’s lawsuit in federal court in Tallahassee. The governor argues that Disney does not have the right to sue because of statutory immunity protecting officials involved in the law-making process, and that the company does not have sufficient grounds to show that she was hurt.