Both chambers in the Florida government have now voted for Disney’s one-of-a-kind municipality to be dissolved, thus ending Disney’s self-governance. As Republican passed the legislation, it is said that Democrats could be heard shouting in protest. Given that Disney and Democrats are on the same side over issues of the past month, it defies common sense to think that news accounts of how this will unload $1-2 billion of debt from Disney can be true. If that were the case, Disney might be jumping for joy. With both the Senate and House giving their approval, the law now goes to Governor DeSantis for ratification.
The bill passed by the legislature on Thursday would eliminate the Reedy Creek Improvement District, as the Disney government is known, as well as a handful of other similar districts by June 2023. The measure does allow for the districts to be reestablished, leaving an avenue to renegotiate its future. It now moves to DeSantis’ office to be signed into law.
Whereas a huge number of outlets are stating that Disney’s debt would be distributed to surrounding counties, that does not appear to be true. Searching for the source of this rumor seems to be a Democrat tax analyst who may have had political reason for such a conclusion. In reality, two pseudo-cities owned and operated by Disney subsidiaries would likely take on the all the debt given that they run the Reedy Creek Improvement District. The result of such a change for the City of Bay Lake and the City of Lake Buena Vista could be devastating for Disney.
From Florida Politics linked in the prior paragraph:
“The real powers were given to Bay Lake and Lake Buena Vista,” said Florida historian and political scientist Rick Foglesong, author of a seminal book on Disney and Florida politics, “Married to the Mouse: Walt Disney World and Orlando.”
Foglesong wondered if the Legislature might amend the bills to address Bay Lake and Lake Buena Vista’s ultimate authority over land use, planning and inspections.
If they don’t contract with Reedy Creek to provide services, those two cities would have to contract with someone else, presumably Orange County (and Osceola County for a small portion of the property), he said. That would still leave Disney in charge of much of its own destiny.
Without Reedy Creek as a municipality governed by two pseudo-cities (populations of less than fifty in both with no non-Disney landowners), estimates for how much in taxes would be prevented from Disney’s collection run somewhere around $200 million per year. Those taxes would then go to the counties in which Disney resides. Over the course of one-hundred years, Disney would lose $20 billion just in terms of today’s money without considering inflation. That’s just the beginning of the troubles Disney could face and is likely the reason for so much disinformation in the press and the punditry.
Dissolving Reedy Creek will not be easy for Florida, however, and it is likely to go through the court system for years. If Disney were to lose it would be a devastating blow and Florida might argue that both the cities inside Disney are based on fraud in order to dissolve all of it. That would effectively ruin Disney’s self-governance and could have incalculable costs.
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Update 3:24 PM EST, 4/21/2022:
Independent journalist Andy Ngo has released video and audio of yelling taking place as the Florida House voted to revoke Disney’s self-governance powers:
Democrats in the Florida House of Representatives can be heard yelling & shrieking after lawmakers voted to remove Disney’s special tax status—a privilege it held for 55 years. Disney employs 38 lobbyists in Tallahassee & donates generously to politicians. pic.twitter.com/ak7rBbB2vw
— Andy Ngô 🏳️🌈 (@MrAndyNgo) April 21, 2022
Editor’s Note (added 4/22/2022 1:25 PM EST): As some have noted, not all the yelling may have been about Disney in the video. Some of the shouts were directed at a redistricting concern. The shriek as the Disney-related law passed is hard to ignore however, and so we cannot verify which yells and noises are about the redistricting versus yells and noises about Disney. All of it seems to be very chaotic. For a more detailed explanation of Florida politics at the moment, see the comments section and various viewpoints.
I said it before: Disney picked a fight with Florida Man…..and lost.
Disney’s only defenders are using Disney to attack DeSantis. Once the furor goes away, who remains to like Disney?
The yelling actually began while the House was debating the congressional districts map. The map removed minority-majority districts. After recessing for an hour, the House continued business amid the shouting and voted out the map followed by the two Disney bills. In the press conference after the session concluded, the Democrats made it clear their protest was over the map.
While that may be true, there is audible “shrieking” once the Disney-related bill is passed, plus the sponsor of the bill comments in the video in such a way as to indicate he believes the yelling is in relation to Disney. It’s a good point though, Rusty, and we do appreciate you providing further context.
The sponsor was making fun of them! Up until the recent 2021-2022 term, the Florida House did not limit debates. A growing group of Democrat legislators started filibustering during debates, keeping the House in session some nights well past midnight. The Majority and Minority leaders agreed on structured debate rules for the last two years, which limited the time of debate. This has frustrated many of the Democrat members who believe they were sold out by their Minority leader. Over the last session, they tested going over the time limit on controversial bill debates, and their microphones were cut off. After over two hours of debating the congressional map, calling it racist over and over again, a Democrat member had her microphone cut off. She kept speaking, and then some of the members took off their outer clothing to reveal they had shirts saying, “Stop the Black Attack.” They pulled out signs with a map of Florida that said, “Legislators Serve Your People, Not Your Party.” Among their chants was “We will occupy this floor” and “Black votes are under attack.” This shut down the process for over an hour, and then the Speaker brought the session back from recess and immediately voted on the map. The yelling continued, trying to drown him out, but he pushed through a motion to consider the two Disney bills without debate, and those were quickly voted on.
Most news reporting only plays the clips of the Disney votes with the shouting, but taken in context, especially given the chanting never changed to anything related to Disney and the following press conference by the protestors never mentioned Disney, the eruption was intended to make a statement about the congressional map. Today, I am seeing some opportunist Democrats on national tv talking about why they tried to stop the Disney bill. They will take whatever spotlight they can get, and someone should ask them why they didn’t protest like that when the Parental Rights bill was passed in the first place!
That’s a great recap of what has been happening. However, the clip being played has particularly vehement shrieking that seems to be in response to the passage of the Disney-related legislation. Like usual, there’s more to the story than meets the eye, but that’s not to say the clip and response has nothing to do with Disney. Great points!
I heard the shriek, too (sounded like an exorcism!), but the majority of protestors were chanting, “When black votes are under attack, what do we do?” “Stand up and fight back.” It was a continuous yelling and chanting over the period of the protest lasting over an hour. Some of the news reports are including the fact the protest took place during the congressional maps and Disney votes, but others just report that the protest was over the Disney votes. My only point is the protest was primarily related to the map and not the Disney votes, and I personally do not believe they would have protested if they were just voting on the Disney bills. They didn’t behave like that when any of the numerous “controversial” bills passed during session, such as the Parental Rights and the 15-week Abortion Ban bills. Reports that they were protesting to stop the Disney bill is like saying NASCAR fans were cheering on Brandon!
Excellent points. I’ll see about us updating the article.
I agree with the Columbia Bugle’s assessment of this situation… “Government power is a sword to be wielded in defense of people and values. DeSantis ran for office and won fairly, with Floridians giving him the right to use government power in their interest. Rescinding (a corrupting) Disney’s special privileges is wholly justified … Florida’s government gave Disney incentives to encourage behavior that they liked, such as building a tourist attraction. Now, Florida is taking away those privileges to encourage them to stop indoctrinating kids.” For all those saying something to the effect of “well it’s not right because we wouldn’t like it if democrats acted this way” – you’re right we wouldn’t like it. But they’d do it anyway (full stop). Democrats wield their power like a hammer which is why they’ve won the culture war all these years as conservatives politely whined on the sidelines. Excellent power move by DeSantis/FL GOP.
Strange that it happened so fast…
Regardless, if Chapek and the Board are smart, they’ll turn this into an opportunity to clean house and get rid of the activists. After the Board/Chapek groveled to keep everyone happy and the activists still walked, they showed how unreasonable they are. Worse, they exposed how small their faction truly is. IMO, that is plenty of leverage to sending people to “future opportunities”
Edit: With Chapek’s contract up in a year and a half, that gives him plenty of time to clean house. Protests will of course occur but, he can “Step Down” and the new CEO can promise to “Do Better” (and Chapek gets a fat stack of cash as a reward.)
Crazy that you are so concerned about misinformation in your articles, yet would post a tweet from alt-right conservative Andy Ngo, and not clarify in your article that the screaming is from the passing of a gerrymandering bill that eliminates two historical democratic-majority black congressional districts. If you didn’t know this fact, my apologies. But please let’s not spread misinformation since there is enough of it in the world.
Andy Ngo isn’t “alt-right” to my knowledge. He’s an indie journalist who has gained fame covering antifa issues (not something we’re ever likely to cover here). If I’m not mistaken, he’s a homosexual person of Asian descent — not a usual set of categories for landing in the “alt-right” category. As for the screaming, yes they were yelling about the districting before. However, when the Disney-related legislation is being brought up the yelling continues, followed by specifically strange shrieking once it passes. That would be terribly unusual if it was not in relation to the bill passing a second earlier.
Still stunned that this is actually happening, and so quickly. Pretty incredible. With this and everything else happening, it feels like the tide is turning in the culture war.