Earlier today, Disney’s federal lawsuit against Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and other state officials including the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District Board of Supervisors went to court for a Motion to Dismiss from DeSantis. While Judge Allen C. Winsor did not make a ruling, a report from Tallahassee.com provides some insight into the arguments presented in the courtroom.
The report says that lawyers for the state and District narrowed in on a 2015 appellate decision that says if a law is constitutional on its face, the motives for the creation of that law are immaterial. The argument, therefore, is that it doesn’t matter if Florida Governor Ron DeSantis was retaliating against Disney in his takeover of the Reedy Creek Improvement District, as long as it was constitutional. Disney is suing the Governor and others claiming a chilling of its First Amendment rights.
In a filing back in October, Disney already dismissed the Hubbard claims made the the defense, saying:
First, Hubbard’s limitation on inquiry into legislative motive explicitly applies only to generally-applicable laws, not to laws targeted at an easily identifiable entity whose speech the state seeks to punish. Second, SB 4C and HB 9B differ dramatically from the laws in Hubbard and similar cases in the scope and uniformity of the public legislative record developed to justify enactment of the laws.
Essentially, Disney says that the Hubbard ruling applies to laws that are applied generally and that the legislation created by the state is targeted. Indeed, Disney points out that the bills that led to the state takeover of the RCID did not apply to all special land-use districts in Florida. Instead, legislation was crafted carefully to only target five special districts out of nearly 2,000 statewide.
Disney goes on to argue that Hubbard protects ambiguous or unknown motives from government officials. As Disney points out, the motives from the state legislators and even DeSantis himself are clear, out in the open, and even celebrated. Hubbard protected government officials from subpoenas that sought to “uncover” a retaliatory intent. Disney says it doesn’t have to work hard at all to “uncover” retaliatory intent, and instead points to the “extraordinary legislative record”:
Far from seeking to ferret out some hidden or opaque retaliatory motive, Disney’s retaliation claim rests on the clear, consistent, and proud declarations of the State leaders who urged enactment of SB 4C and HB 9B.
In Disney’s argument to Judge Winsor, they said that this was the most “clear case” of government retaliation he was likely to find.
Judge Winsor said that he will rule on the Motion to Dismiss in the coming weeks.
As always, keep checking back with us here at BlogMickey.com as we continue to bring you the latest news, photos, and info from around the Disney Parks!
