TALLAHASSEE – Attorneys for Gov. Ron DeSantis and a revamped Central Florida special district asked a federal judge Thursday to dismiss a lawsuit alleging the condition unconstitutionally retaliated towards Walt Disney Parks and Resorts since of the company’s opposition to a controversial training legislation.
The attorneys submitted two motions disputing that a final decision by DeSantis and lawmakers to exchange the former Reedy Creek Enhancement District with the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District was retaliation that violated Disney’s To start with Amendment legal rights. The a long time-old Reedy Creek district was carefully aligned with Disney, although DeSantis appoints the new district’s board.
“Disney statements that the Initial Modification gives it, instead than Florida lawmakers, the right to determine the structure and composition of the governing entity in the district,” lawyers for the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District wrote. “Disney might own most of the land in the district, but it does not personal the government. That however belongs to the persons, performing as a result of their elected reps.”
Lawyers for DeSantis and the secretary of the Florida Division of Commerce wrote that Disney’s lawsuit is a “very last-ditch effort and hard work to reinstate its corporate kingdom” and that the condition had made the decision to “reform” the district.
But in the lawsuit, Disney lawyers argued that it “is a very clear violation of Disney’s federal Very first Modification legal rights for the point out to inflict a concerted campaign of retaliation since the company expressed an feeling with which the government disagreed” on the schooling concern.
“Disney regrets that it has arrive to this,” the lawsuit said. “But getting exhausted initiatives to search for a resolution, the firm is remaining with no option but to file this lawsuit to protect its forged customers, visitors and community progress companions from a relentless campaign to weaponize government power versus Disney in retaliation for expressing a political viewpoint unpopular with specific state officers.”
Disney filed the lawsuit in April in federal court in Tallahassee and submitted a revised model this month. DeSantis and Disney started clashing in 2022 following firm officers opposed a new regulation that limited instruction about sexual orientation and gender identification in schools.
Amid the clash, DeSantis and the Republican-controlled Legislature passed two legal guidelines that eventually led to renaming the Reedy Creek Enhancement District as the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District, restricting some of its powers and providing the governor authority to appoint the district board. The condition in the 1960s established the Reedy Creek district and gave it many powers related to nearby governments.
In the lawsuit, Disney is seeking an injunction towards the two regulations, alleging they are “illegal and unenforceable since they had been enacted in retaliation for Disney’s political speech in violation of the Very first Amendment.”
In addition to disputing the Initially Amendment arguments, attorneys for DeSantis argued in their movement Thursday that Disney does not have standing to sue the governor and the Division of Commerce secretary. Meredith Ivey was performing secretary of the section at the time the lawsuit was submitted, though Alex Kelly was subsequently named secretary.
The motion reported the governor and secretary do not “implement any of the rules at challenge, so Disney lacks standing to sue them.” It reported DeSantis’ only connection to the guidelines is the electrical power to appoint Central Florida Tourism Oversight District board users.
“The governor’s appointment electrical power is just a person part of the governmental equipment that the Legislature developed to switch RCID’s (Reedy Creek Enhancement District’s) constitution,” the movement claimed. “The bring about of Disney’s alleged damage is so not the governor’s ‘enforcement’ of … (the) appointment provision, but the ‘very existence’ of … (the) repeal provision.”
The circumstance is assigned to U.S. District Judge Allen Winsor, who has specified Disney right until Oct. 19 to respond to the filings Thursday.
Meanwhile, Disney and the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District also continue on to fight in a separate circumstance in Orange County circuit court docket.
The district is in search of a ruling that growth agreements reached by Disney and the previous Reedy Creek board are “null and void.” The agreements were being accredited shortly ahead of the change to the Central Florida Tourism Oversight board.
But Disney on Thursday submitted a revised counter-assert that tends to make a sequence of arguments, like that the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District has unconstitutionally breached contracts.
