Disney Lawsuit Against DeSantis Dismissed: Read It For Yourself
The Disney lawsuit against former presidential candidate and current Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has been dismissed. Read it for yourself here:
disney_dismissA federal judge has dismissed The Walt Disney Co.’s lawsuit against Gov. Ron DeSantis, saying the company’s argument that it was unlawfully punished over free speech lacked standing and merit.
The suit, filed last spring, argued that the governor acted impermissibly by disbanding the Reedy Creek Improvement District — a special district that oversaw much of the governance of the land on which Disney World sits — and replacing it with a new oversight board. Disney had argued DeSantis made the move in retaliation for company leaders publicly criticizing the Parental Rights in Education Act, commonly referred to as the Don’t Say Gay bill. That law restricts classroom instruction on gender identity and sexual orientation.
In a 17-page order, Judge Allen Winsor of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida in Tallahassee agreed that the change “works to Disney’s significant detriment,” but said the company could not point to the motivation behind the legislation to say it was unfairly targeted.
“It is true that the laws did not affect all districts, and it is true (at least accepting Disney’s allegations) that Disney faces the brunt of the harm,” Winsor wrote. “But Disney offers no support for its argument that the court is to undertake line drawing to determine just how many others a law must cover to avoid ‘singling out’ those they affect most.”
In a statement, Disney said it would “press forward” with its case.
“This is an important case with serious implications for the rule of law, and it will not end here,” read a Disney statement provided by a company spokesperson. “If left unchallenged, this would set a dangerous precedent and give license to states to weaponize their official powers to punish the expression of political viewpoints they disagree with.”
Who knew lèse-majesté would be upheld by an American court?Report
Who knew that you would support the idea of corporations carving out little chunks of land and saying “we run this place now”?Report
Here it is again.
The sudden discovery of a high minded principle, which never existed until the very moment that Disney criticized DeSantis.Report
Careful with that axe, Eugene.
Someone might point out that this is a sudden abandonment of a high minded principle, which was a moral imperative until the very moment that Disney criticized DeSantis.
The last thing you want to do is look like a mirror image of your opponents who look around and decide where they ought to be based on where everybody else is.
Vikram had a *GREAT* tweet the other day discussing this sort of thing: “Quit outsourcing your morality to people you hate.”Report
This is just tu quoque without even the quoque.
You know why tu quoque is called a fallacy?
Because you’re admitting that Republicans are guilty of suddenly discovered principles, but all you’re saying is that Democrats do it too.Report
“Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbor, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye’ while the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.” (Matthew 7:3-5).
“But that’s a fallacy!” (Matthew 7:6, probably)Report
“tu quoque” as a fallacy applies only when it distracts from the specific topic being debated. That’s frequently hard to identify in these fast-moving blog comments, but a common stated or unstated premise here is that Republicans are Bad, at least in comparison to Democrats. For that premise, a suggestion that Democrats do it too is not a tu quoque fallacy.Report
Please provide an example of a democratically-led state where a major international corporation has had a significant legal concession from the sate removed after speaking out about the negative impacts of legislation signed into law by that state’s governor.Report
Are you actually interested in examples or are you just going to play Bring Me A Rock?Report
Making BSDI claims requires showing work, or so I am told anytime I do it . . . .Report
What *I* tell you is something to the effect of “Yelling ‘BSDI’ isn’t a counter-argument. It’s not even an argument.”
In this *PARTICULAR* case, I wasn’t yelling “BSDI”. I was, instead, noting that in the stampede to complain about the newly discovered high-minded principle (without doing *ANY* work to establish the whole “newly discovered” thing), a long-held high-minded principle was abandoned.
We see this, for example, with the people defending plagiarism at Harvard. “Oh, complaining about plagiarism? When did you guys start caring about that?”
“The second you stopped caring about it” might be one answer, I guess…
But I also came up in academia and I knew the old high-minded principle and, apart from repeating myself over and over and over and over again, mostly keep it in mind when I write stuff.
So too, here.
Oh, we recently discovered this principle, you assert?
When did you abandon it?
Recently?Report
“Making BSDI claims requires showing work”
Brother, I’m not sayin’ both sides do it, I’m sayin’ your side didn’t until just now. What changed?Report
“You do it also” literally is an admission that “Yeah, we are doing it.”
Are conservatives “doing it”, that is, falsely claiming to hold a high minded principle about special districts just to gain partisan advantage?Report
I thought it was clear from context, but i guess I should have added “Point of information:” to my comment. I’m not interested in joining your game, I was just offering a clarification on a term of art that’s often misused.Report
“The sudden discovery of a high minded principle, which never existed until the very moment that Disney criticized DeSantis.”
so they don’t have to bake the cake, then? businesses have full authority to decide how things are done on their property, and the government shouldn’t be allowed to come in and start telling them otherwise?Report
You are one of the last people around here I would expect to side with government when it makes unilateral changes to an existing structure in reaction to a single entity.Report
Well, I wouldn’t. But I was told over and over, quite strongly, that It Works That Way, and further that it works that way because of objective morally-correct reasons that don’t have anything to do with whether we like one side or the other.
Now the people who told me that are very upset at this example of It Working That Way, and I’m asking why suddenly now it’s different, why they’re saying it shouldn’t Work That Way.Report
See also, railroads.Report
right?Report
…and that’s a good thing, to you? something you like, something you support?Report
Everyone supports it.
Seriously, there is virtually no constituency in America that wants to cut off special grants and subsidies and special treatment for favored businesses.Report
Who are these constituency members? Are they here in the room with us right now, invisible and silent but existent nonetheless?Report
Yes, everyone here at OT supports subsidies, special tax incentives and special treatment for favored businesses.Report
This is like the thing where he explains how nobody on the board knows what a furin cleavage site is. It’s the “Typical Mind Fallacy“.
That is: Typical mind fallacy is the mistake of making biased and overconfident conclusions about other people’s experience based on your own personal experience, a mistake of assuming that other people are more like you than they actually are.Report
Let the person who wants to get rid of subsidies, etc speak up and contradict me.
Until then, my assertion stands.Report
Is this going to turn into a thing where I say “Well, I don’t think that we should have subsidies, special tax incentives, and special treatments for favored businesses” and then you point out that one of my favorite businesses should lose its subsidies, special tax incentives, and special treatments without also noting that I kinda want them gone from *ALL* businesses?
Because if you turn “I want to get rid of these things universally” into “well, we should get rid of those things locally but not universally! SO THERE!”, then that’s dumb.Report
Yes, it would be dumb, so that’s probably not it.Report
I await with bated breath to find out what it actually is.Report
If anyone actually had an argument against subsidies universally, it wouldn’t matter what I say, it would persuade others on its own strength.
But no one does. We know for a damn sure fact that not one of the Republican Congresspeople, Senators, Governors, legislators or jurists is making that argument.
The Federalist Society doesn’t make that argument, nor will you find it at National Review or the Claremont Institute or at any of the various think tanks.
There might still be a few aging free market libertarians over at Cato or Reason, but they stopped being relevant when the Berlin Wall fell.Report
So we’ve gone from “no one thinks that” to “congressmen don’t think that”?
Okay. I suppose I should have seen that coming. That’s on me.Report
So…we’re in agreement that no elected Republicans want to get rid of subsidies?Report
I honestly didn’t know that that was the argument until just this moment.
But, sure. You are 100% right on that one.Report
OK, so if that’s correct, then my original statement that “no one” wants to get rid of subsidies is effectively confirmed.
But if some pedant wants to sputter “But Mr. Internet commenter over here wants to!” well, then they can knock themselves out.Report
Allow me to copy and paste what you said: Yes, everyone here at OT supports subsidies, special tax incentives and special treatment for favored businesses.
But that’s fine. I now know that you meant congressmen.Report
No I meant what I said.
So far no one has contradicted me. But if they do, I will happily stand corrected.Report
IMHO subsidies, special tax incentives and special treatment for favored businesses create economic distortions and should be eliminated em-mass unless someone can make a really good case for market failure.
“Preserving jobs” is not “market failure”.
Examples:
1) The big three automakers should have been left to their own devices.
2) The US giving money to the airlines after we shut them down because of 911 was fine.
3) Covid was a massive cluster so I’m going to treat it as a massive gov/market failure.Report
I stand happily corrected.Report
Actually, no. I think what’s being lost here is DeSantis was likely blissfully unaware of the Disney carve out, or at least blissfully DGAF. Then the Mouse dared utter something contrary to his political stance and all of a sudden he’s got a blinding interest in shutting down this one particular special district. Either do them all, or none.Report
There actually is a use case for these things.
If you are setting up new land, say you go into a swamp and there’s nothing, then having a corp act as gov until there is a gov to hand off those duties is reasonable.
Disney’s land is well developed and there is a local gov.
I don’t understand why it’s a good thing for Disney to be the government. I haven’t heard that they’ve abused this ability, but it still seems like a bad idea on the face of it.
I get that this showed up on the radar because Disney and the gov got into a pissing match, but that doesn’t change that Disney seems to have acquired a bunch of “gov only” abilities from back when it was building on a swamp and has kept them.Report
I would agree with this.
If it was actually the case, but it isn’t.
There are hundreds of special districts in Florida just like Disney’s but DeSantis specifically exempted them.
And so far, no one here or anywhere else wants to explain why.Report
There are hundreds of special districts in Florida just like Disney’s but DeSantis specifically exempted them.
There are hundreds of companies in Florida who control the police force, have the power of eminent domain so they can shut down their competitors, control land use/environmental regs, and issue gov bonds and set taxes?
Can you name a few other companies that have those abilities?
My strong expectation is most special districts don’t hand out those abilities at all, and the few that do don’t hand them to a company that has obvious conflicts of interests.Report
A few things:
1) Some Republicans (and I think even some Democrats) in Florida have wanted to curb the power of the Reedy Creek Improvement District, and Disney specifically, for a long time, not because they hate Disney, but because House Bill No. 486 and the district’s charter give Disney, a private entity, unprecedented powers with no equal in Florida (or maybe anywhere; I don’t know of any similar entities in other states, though I’m happy to be educated should they exist).
2) Other Republicans, including DeSantis, have been up front about why they’re doing this. I can’t imagine anyone’s operating under the illusion that they haven’t been pretty clear.
3. As I mentioned in (1), the Reedy Creek Improvement District doesn’t look like any of the other special districts in Florida (or, perhaps, in any other state). It has incredibly sweeping powers, not just to levy taxes, build and maintain infrastructure, create and fund institutions like fire and police departments, and even to seize land under eminent domain, but its governance and administration is entirely controlled by one company. There is not a single other special district like it in Florida, and not by any stretch of the imagination hundreds of them.
That said, the legislature repealed 6 special districts, none of which were at all like Reedy Creek (they’re utilities, libraries, and development districts) except in one way: they were created around the time Reedy Creek was (before 1968). Clearly the legal cover for targeting Reedy Creek was that it’s too old, and for that legal reasoning to look even remotely plausible, they had to get rid of all the other districts of a similar age.
So, sure, the reason Disney’s district got repealed now is clearly because of Disney’s opposition to DeSantis’ anti-trans agenda, and the legislature’s explicit reasoning is silly, and probably caused some harm in the repeal of the other districts which seemed to be doing just fine, and didn’t have anything like the sweeping powers that Disney’s did, but if your only argument is, “There are a bunch of special districts; why didn’t they target others?” you’re not going to get very far, because one of these things is very much not like the others, and hell, the legislature told you why that district and 5 others.
It seems pretty straightforward to point out the real reason it’s happening now, and to point out that it could set a bad precedent, particularly on first amendment issues. It’s also seems pretty straightforward to point out that from any political perspective short of the worst sort of libertarianism, Disney’s powers in the Reedy Creek Improvement District were absolutely ridiculous, and outside of the present context, getting rid of those powers is an unqualified good thing (issues of transferring administration and debt not withstanding, though it should be obvious that the very existence of that debt is a sign of the problem with the existence of the district).Report
Just to be clear, I’m willing to be persuaded that this special district, or all of them need to be revised or repealed.
But I’m not willing to pretend that this is anything other than a blatant abuse of power to punish a critic of the government.Report
I don’t know about all of them. None of the others are like Disney’s. Some are pretty powerful, some are just utilities, some are just very specific functions (like the law library that was repealed). Seems like they work fine*, and there are similar entities in a lot of states.
Disney’s was (is?) an abomination, and so is the reason it was repealed now, instead of 30 years ago or 10 years from now. If anyone is pretending it was repealed now for reasons other than the obvious, or if anyone is pretending that the obvious reason it was repealed now is good, then those people are just bad people, and you should probably just ignore them.
*Some of them do seem to be somewhat or wholly antidemocratic in practice, if not in law (at least in some cases, local governments do have a great deal of control of them, but choose to stay out of their business) so they’re probably pretty bad at least as currently constituted. I suppose even Reedy Creek could be reconstituted such that local government(s) controlled it directly or indirectly (via appointments), and it would at least be better than it is now and serve a similar function (making sure Disney keeps bringing in tax dollars for the locals and the state, and its massive infrastructural needs don’t create problems).Report
Saul, if you’re saying that you feel the government should not be permitted to treat one private entity differently than the rest just because That Guy Made The Government Mad, my only reply is “welcome to the Libertarian Party, your complimentary gun is on the table to the left”.Report
I don’t think Disney ever had much of a chance with this.Report
Yeah, this. It was a really ugly piece of bad-faith wishcasting among some libs on Twitter to ever say Florida was going to lose this. And probably the same for a few liberals here as well, though tbh I wasn’t following close enough to be sure.Report
Whether you cast it as a taking or as a first amendment issue, Disney was sanctioned by the DeSantis Administration for committing Thought Crime. We really need to get clear on why that’s bad since he won’t be the last Republican to try and do that.Report
When you’re used to privilege, being treated like everyone else can feel like a punishment.Report
So far, Disney – in this matter – is not being treated like everyone else. When DeSantis revokes the special district for The Villages then we can talk.Report
Which is why this high principle is so transparently false that no one is seriously defending it.
They start with a feeble attempt at “well, no special privileges” then quickly pivot or deflect when challenged to apply it to the hundred other special districts in Florida.Report
Which is why this high principle is so transparently false that no one is seriously defending it.
There are plenty of people seriously defending it.
The judge, for one.
“I specifically said at OT here.”
“Yes, of course. That’s what you said.”Report
He wasn’t defending the principle. He was gate keeping. Which is what a standing determination is all about.Report
No, he specifically did not defend the high principle of abolishing special privileges.
He couldn’t, because neither plaintiff nor defendant even raised the issue.
The issue was whether DeSantis was abusing his power in a discriminatory way, and the judge sidestepped that and ruled on standing.
But hey, after 70 odd comments, are you going to be the one to make a valiant attempt to defend the high principle?
Because it doesn’t look like anyone else wants to do it.Report
Will it turn into you telling me that congressmen don’t support the principle? That CATO doesn’t?Report
Maybe wait with bated breath to find out?Report
It will turn into me saying, once again, that literally no one at OT or Congress or any other elected official anywhere is willing to defend the principle of abolishing special privileges for corporations.
And once again, with 80 odd comments and counting, no one even trying to contradict me.Report
I don’t think that corporations should have special privileges.
Heck, I’d be willing to say that we shouldn’t have subsidies, special tax incentives and special treatment for favored businesses.Report
I’d be willing to agree, given all the professional sports teams and oil refineries and other large businesses who never generate anywhere near the tax revenue that various jurisdictions forego to lure them in, much less grow the jobs they promise.
It’s almost as if supply side approaches to these issues favor business profits over actual economic impacts or something.Report
Wait, I was undercutting the Broncos by saying that?
LET ME RECONSIDER
Yeah, I’m still good with it.
(This whole “regulatory capture” thing really throws wrenches into stuff. There oughta be a law.)Report
Let’s define these things:
The Villages, Florida has 17 Community Development Districts (CDDs). Each CDD has its own board of supervisors. CDDs are special-purpose districts established by Florida State Statutes.
CDD responsibilities in The Villages include:
Storm water management
Recreation
Security
Special events
Common area maintenance
Potable and irrigation water supply
Sewer and wastewater management
Street lights
Given that these entities aren’t also private companies, we basically have arms of the gov acting like an arm of the gov.
Walt Disney (the person) wanted the ability to run a city and create a utopia. So they got the full package. Then Disney (the company) walked away from Walt’s vision after he died to just maintain/build theme parks.
They can…
…condemn and acquire property outside its boundaries “for the public use”.
…issue public bonds.
Disney’s “government” runs the police force, the fire department, handles building codes, land-use planning, environmental protection, and so on.Report
There’s not much daylight between those two wouldn’t you say?Report
There’s not much daylight between those two wouldn’t you say?
We trust the gov to have these abilities because it doesn’t have competitors, it’s supposed to be a neutral body.
Other non-gov groups could also be neutral, say if the only thing they do is manage Street Lights and/or sewer. Or if they’re managing land use regs without having any skin in the game.
Disney being neutral is impossible.
We’re giving to Disney the gov’s ability to shut down Disney’s competitors. We’re also handing to Disney the gov’s ability to regulate Disney’s environmental standards and land use.Report
There are broader legal implications here. There is a cause of action under the equal protection clause for a person intentionally treated differently than others similarly situated without rational basis. If Disney is being treated differently than similarly situated entities without rational basis (animus), then that would be the theory of the case.
I think Disney doesn’t argue this because it recognizes other districts are either different or effected, but it’s main argument is that due to Disney’s unique situation, it faces the “brunt of the harm.”Report
due to Disney’s unique situation, it faces the “brunt of the harm.”
Disney’s situation isn’t defendable. It’s not “harm” to lose abilities that only the gov should have and which they never should have been entrusted with to begin with.
Why it’s being removed is pretty ugly, but we still have the problem that Disney’s situation isn’t defendable.Report
two wrongs something somethingReport
As citizens who vote, our interest in this isn’t Disney’s rightness or wrongness.
Its like seeing a petty thief criticize the emperor then get summarily executed.
Whether he was a thief or not becomes entirely irrelevant.
What makes this extraordinary is that the entire Republican party has chosen to remain silent about the flagrant abuse of power.
Donald Trump has nothing to do with this case so he can’t be blamed.
The GOP has completely embraced the idea of granting themselves dictatorial powers.
If there is a Republican state legislator somewhere in Tennessee, he is almost certainly choosing to acquiesce to this. If there is a Republican gubernatorial candidate in any state, they are choosing to accept this.Report
You’ll notice that the guy abusing his powers isn’t being rewarded for it.
The solution to two wrongs is to punish both of them. So Disney loses the ability to shut down, or even kill, it’s competitors and DeSantis doesn’t get to be President.Report
See my reply to chip.Report
It’s not bad. Disney wasn’t punished for what it thought, it was punished for what it did, which it shouldn’t have done so it was rightly punished. Disney should obey the law instead.Report
“This is an important case with serious implications for the rule of law, and it will not end here,” read a Disney statement provided by a company spokesperson. “If left unchallenged, this would set a dangerous precedent and give license to states to weaponize their official powers to punish the expression of political viewpoints they disagree with.”
I agree with everything there except the part about how it sets a precedent.Report
I don’t have time to read the opinion but the very unusual accommodation Disney had in the first place is why I couldn’t see this going any other way.Report
Except – as we all learned at the time – Disney was one of dozens of special districts in the state of Florida. Thus far, there is no report of any of those districts being reordered in the same way.Report
Live by the king’s leave, die by the king’s leave.Report
https://ordinary-times.com/2024/02/01/disney-lawsuit-against-desantis-dismissed-read-it-for-yourself/#comment-3963704Report
We don’t have kings here. Not yet anyway.Report
We’ve allowed politicians to serve that function.Report
FDR is the closets we have come to a regal dynasty, and after he died in office we changed the Constitution to prevent anyone from doing that again.
Its part of why elections matter.Report
I’m not talking about presidents. I’m talking about politicians: presidents, congress persons, and anyone in high administrative office.Report
A country can have but one king.
What you are referencing is a military junta.Report
No, what I’m saying is that we have a elite group of people who serve, in general, like a king. They are generally above the law, are legally or practically immune from prosecution, and make laws that the common folk must obey but they do not.
While not specifically applicable to the DeSantis/Disney situation it’s generally applicable. Disney pissed off a powerful politician and he used his authority/power to make life difficult for them.Report
All the more reason to convict Trump of his crimes don’t ya think?Report
All the more reason to ensure rigorous prosecution of congressional members, administration officials, etc.
REGARDLESS of part, yes? Trump would fall into one those categories. You willing to say that?Report
Totally. That Senator Menendez is under multiple indictments and not forced out gauls me. But here we are.
I don’t oppose prosecutions. I do oppose witch hunts – like the one being directed at Secretary Mayorkas. Or for that matter the attempt to impeach the President for his son’s legal business dealings (and I note that Hunter Biden also stands indicted of several crimes).Report
Disney was one of dozens of special districts in the state of Florida.
Not every special district is a private company entrusted with the power to shut down other private companies and take their land, much less run their own police force.
Every special district is an exception to the rules. Not every exception to the rules is obviously a problem. I got pulled over by the cops and they decided to give me a warning and let me go. That’s a different issue than them doing the same thing with someone who has been drinking.Report
So it’s only the special districts you don’t like who need to be flogged when they commit Thought Crimes. Good to know.Report
IMHO it’s a problem to give private companies the ability to kill their competitors. Disney has the tools to make it happen.
They can set administration level “laws”.
They own the police. Ergo they can decide what laws the police prioritize.
In practice they’d just outlaw (via zoning, land use regulations, and eminent domain) whatever companies they don’t like and hopefully not need to use their police to actually kill people.
There are accusations and a book or two claiming that they have done this.
I hadn’t realized they had these abilities until their spat with the gov… however I’m pretty sure I would think giving companies this power was a bad idea if it had come to my attention before.
So how about you? Are you comfortable giving all companies these abilities or is it only solid blue companies that back your policies?Report
A half-century ago, Disney comes in and says, “We will invest billions to improve the land. We will generate very large tax revenues. There will undoubtedly be long coattails with other parks, conventions, conferences, etc. But we insist that we have control over the utilities and roads, with the normal taxing authority you give special districts, so we know they are managed up to our parks’ standards.” The counties and state fall all over themselves to do the deal.
If I were Disney I wouldn’t have made it a First Amendment case. I’d have sued on the grounds it was an illegal taking, and asked for the state to pay back billions worth of investment for backing out of the agreement.
(In large parts of the country, the accommodation isn’t unusual. See, for example, Highlands Ranch south of Denver, an unincorporated area with >100,000 people (density about 4,000 people per square mile, urban density by almost everyone’s standards), run by a glorified HOA and special districts.)Report
They have the best lawyers money can buy. If they had a case for that I assume they would have made it. No one is bound to anything forever, certainly not a sovereign.
I think the response is what North said, which is to take their investment elsewhere.Report
From last week:
Disneyland’s new vision includes up to $2.5-billion investment and a plan to take over city streets
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-01-27/disneyland-2-billion-city-streets
For decades, Disneyland has been hampered from expanding its Anaheim resort due to streets, highways and businesses that encircle the self-proclaimed “Happiest Place on Earth.”
But Disneyland hopes to get around those limits with a plan to spend up to $2.5 billion to reimagine the resort with new attractions, hotels and shops within its current 100-acre footprint — a proposal that would require taking over some surrounding city streets.Report
In California? Good luck. I mean, if anyone could pull it off it’d be the haus of maus but California? Good luck.Report
It’s surprising that they couldn’t have come up with something better though. The judge’s ruling read like he was trying to stretch out an essay to 1000 words.Report
Let us not forget, though I note again that I don’t particularly care, that Disney is fully capable of appealing and may not pull a judge quite so obsequious to Desantis.Report
Yeah, this. IIRC, among other things the agreement between the Florida and Disney explicitly authorized the state to revise it through legislative acts.
Just one of several reasons why Disney was legitimately going to lose its lawsuit.Report
A litigant can always try multiple alternative tacts. I think the issue with the takings clause is that a court won’t find that Disney had a property interest in a form of government. If it is to argued to be a regulatory taking, it’s still not clear that a change in governance is a regulation of a property interest (something more clear with zoning), and even if it is, it must deprive Disney of all beneficial use of the property in question to be a taking.Report
They got these abilities so Walt could play god and build a utopian city.Report
I just can’t get exercised about Disney having a special carve out taken away. Hopefully the corporation will remember and will re-allocate resources to non-Florida states as much as possible going forward.Report
Can you get excited about the hundreds of other big, medium, and small businesses in Florida that do business with the state and need permits, discretionary approvals, or contract renewals?
And are being told that any criticism of the government will result in retaliation without redress?Report
I’d say those businesses should get the fish out of Florida if they possibly can. The sooner the business community parts way with Republicans the faster we’ll get an actual functional right wing party in this country.Report
Actually, Florida is such a sh*thole place (to paraphrase our favorite past president) it doesn’t matter which party runs it. The sooner it’s under water, the better.Report
Politically and professionally (Fl is almost as big a headache as NJ is) I agree with you.Report
The population has been increasing basically 200k+ per year since 1955. New Jersey leveled off in 1972, increasing less than 4k per year since then.Report
There’s no accounting for taste.Report
And so many of them are coming to die.Report
Having read the order, it seems as though the court bent over backwards to deny standing. I’d love one of our lawyer readers to take us through it.Report
As was pointed out on Twitter, it simultaneously says that Disney can’t complain about this because it’s a done deal and also can’t complain about future events because they haven’t happened yet. I expect the 11th Circuit to look at this closely.Report
But it is settled law that “when a statute is facially constitutional, a plaintiff cannot bring a free-speech challenge by claiming that the lawmakers who passed it acted with a constitutionally impermissible purpose.” Hubbard, 803 F.3d at 1312. The Eleventh Circuit has “held that many times.” Id. And this settled law forecloses Disney’s claim.
Nothing says bending over backwards like relying on settled law held by the appeals court many times!Report
First, thanks for acknowledging that there was in fact discriminatory intent.
Second, putting the judges comment into action:
“The Planning Commission denied the discretionary zone change sought by the church, saying “We don’t like their stance on queer people.”
Is this really what the 11th Circuit has upheld many times?Report
It denied standing as against two defendants, not all. I operate from the assumption that in novel cases like this, litigants won’t be certain who is the proper party to sue and so they sue any possible party.Report
This situation is like when Manchester United plays Chelsea, and I root for the meteor.Report
Like the elimination of SALT deductions, this is probably the right policy choice made for a very bad reason.Report