What’s behind their assumption that Disney is the favorite in its fight against the Florida governor?
What’s behind their assumption that Disney is the favorite in its fight against the Florida governor?
G overnor Ron DeSantis, back to governing after bowing out of the 2024 GOP presidential primary, has notched yet another legal victory in an increasingly lopsided war against Disney.
A federal district judge last week tossed the First Amendment lawsuit that Disney filed against DeSantis after Florida’s state legislature stripped the corporate giant of its control of the Reedy Creek Improvement District.
National Review’s Dan McLaughlin explains Disney’s legal argument neatly, writing that the company claimed in its federal filing that “the termination of Reedy Creek was an act of retaliation in violation of the First Amendment.”
And there we were, led to believe that Disney vs. DeSantis would tilt largely in the Mouse’s favor.
“At the time,” McLaughlin adds, “there was much gloating from Donald Trump and other DeSantis critics to the effect that DeSantis, the Florida legislature, and the [Central Florida Tourism Oversight District] had been out-lawyered by clever Disney attorneys and that DeSantis was doomed to lose in court.”
It’s true. There was much gloating.
Yet, on January 31, U.S. District Judge Allen Winsor dismissed the suit, arguing that the entertainment company lacked standing.
Winsor’s decision, it turns out, marks the latest in a string of legal setbacks for the Mouse. Recall that Disney’s initial hopes of landing a sympathetic judge in the person of Judge Mark Walker were squashed in June of last year when he recused himself from the federal case. Winsor’s judgment also comes after Disney had already dropped everything but the First Amendment claims from its lawsuit.
How could it be that DeSantis’s critics in the press sounded so certain, so self-assured, of Disney’s position in the fight? They suggested repeatedly that Disney would steamroll DeSantis, proving to the world that a mere governor is no match for a multibillion-dollar corporation that specializes in monetizing childhood nostalgia. And to think that Mitt Romney’s “corporations are people” was once a punchline among the anti-DeSantis crowd.
“Disney has a ‘strong case’ against DeSantis over his ‘retaliatory campaign,’ First Amendment experts say,” read one CNN headline.
“Ron DeSantis Finds Taking On Disney Is a Dicey Business,” the New York Times warned last year. “Republicans are increasingly taking on corporations they denounce as ‘woke.’ The Florida governor is just the latest to find that it isn’t easy.”
Said the once-austere New Republic, “Disney Tells Ron DeSantis: Play Stupid Games, Win Stupid Prizes.”
And this is to say nothing of the premature celebrations that were printed after the pro-Disney board overseeing the Reedy Creek Improvement District voted to strip itself of power just as the state installed a replacement board.
“Ron DeSantis Got Played by Disney,” declared New York magazine.
Said Vox, “How Disney just beat Ron DeSantis.”
“Ron DeSantis’ Board Rages Against Disney World After Legal Humiliation,” promised Newsweek.
The new board immediately nullified the vote stripping itself of power, wresting back control of the district from Disney. Disney then filed a lawsuit in state court over the matter of whether it was kosher for the old board to sign over its authority to Disney just before it was replaced by one of the state’s choosing. That suit is still pending.
One could argue that whether Disney is “winning” or “losing” is a matter of semantics and/or legal perspective. But consider the words of Disney chief Bob Iger, who took the company’s helm in 2022: “The last thing I want is for the company to be drawn into any culture wars,” he said of the company’s First Amendment case. “I’m not sure that was handled very well.”
The legal matter isn’t yet settled, and whether Disney will be triumphant remains to be seen. But that is true of any protracted and complicated legal battle.
Why, then, given how the fight started, how it escalated, and where it stands currently, has the tone of so much news coverage carried the assumption of an easy Disney victory?
Is it a subconscious (or explicit) bias against DeSantis? Or is it a bias for corporate America? If the latter, then we are a long way away from the days of snickering over “corporations are people.”