Two big names in their fields — entertainment colossus Walt Disney Co. and the politically ascendant Republican governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis — are locked in a battle that could have ramifications for the 2024 US presidential campaign. Disney is an important player in Florida due to Walt Disney World, the massive theme park complex in Orlando that is among the state’s biggest employers, taxpayers and tourism generators. The company’s decision to speak out against a 2022 state law triggered the conflict with DeSantis, who has been laying the foundation for a possible run for the Republican presidential nomination.
1. What are Disney and DeSantis fighting about?
In 2022, the Republican-run Florida legislature, with DeSantis’s support, passed a law banning discussion of gender identity and sexual orientation in public schools. (The law applied to kindergarden through third grade before being expanded this year to all grade levels.) Opponents dubbed the legislation, officially the Parental Rights in Education bill, the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. After DeSantis signed it into law, Disney — at the urging of employees within its diverse workforce — called for it to be repealed or struck down by the courts. That angered DeSantis, who said Florida is “governed by the interests of the people of the state” and not by corporate executives in California, where Disney is headquartered. The war of words may have stopped there, but DeSantis decided to go after Disney’s long-held special status under state law.
Bloomberg Politics
By Danielle Moran and Nic Querolo
April 28, 2023