Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ battle with Disney World has been highly publicized in recent months and the full timeline of the Disney Vs. DeSantis brouhaha is a long and wild read. Now, just five months after the lawmaker asked for Disney’s “surrender,” he’s back in action and asking the denizens of the Sunshine State for a whole lotta money because lawsuits are expensive. In fact, Governor DeSantis is asking for more than $19 million more in total to fight not only legal battles against Disney but also a slew of other lawsuits challenging the legality of various laws and even some going after him personally.
To a certain extent, this is something every state and every governor deals with. Constituents file lawsuits. Sometimes it’s over the constitutionality of certain laws. Sometimes it’s over harm they claim a certain law or action taken by a state employee has had on them personally. That’s why most states have a budget to pay lawyers to handle these things, but what’s remarkable about Florida is not only how much total money Governor DeSantis is asking for but also the year over year budget increase the money would represent.
Where Would The Extra Budget Money Go?
News 6 Orlando did a deep dive into the numbers from Governor DeSantis’ proposed budget and offered a rough breakdown of where everything would go. Apparently the $19M in total would represent a 36% increase from last year’s numbers. Of that $19M, $4M would apparently go to fighting lawsuits the Governor himself is named in. $5M would go to the Department Of Education to fight various lawsuits (likely the Don’t Say Gay Bill, which is what originally created the issues with Disney) and a further $5M would go to fighting lawsuits over voting rights. That would also leave an additional $5M for other legal measures, some of which would likely involve Disney World.
Now, a total increase of 36% might not seem like a huge deal, but it comes just a year after the Governor asked for a large increase in his office’s legal budget with some line items reportedly jumping as much as 400%. At the time, Governor DeSantis’ office claimed they’d been hit with so many lawsuits they were forced to seek outside council because the lawyers Florida had on retainer couldn’t handle them all.
What’s Going On With Disney Vs. DeSantis?
The most famous of these lawsuits is, of course, the one with Disney World. Currently there’s ongoing litigation happening between the Parks, Experiences, and Products division of Disney and the Central Florida Tourism District (plus the co-defendents named in the suit, including Ron DeSantis). That suit was filed by Disney in April of last year when the company claimed the state government was trying to infringe on its right to freedom of speech.
The lawsuit was filed after a series of very public back-and-forths. First, Disney spoke out against the so-called Don’t Say Gay Bill and released a statement on its website. Not long after, DeSantis replaced Disney’s Reedy Creek District --which oversaw the theme park -- and replaced it with his own oversight board, despite giving Universal Orlando its own special district that encompasses the upcoming Epic Universe and more last year. Conflict then followed over everything from construction on the monorail to a proposed state prison near Disney.
The two sides have been in court ever since. The last filing was on December 12, and the lawsuit shows no signs of slowing down.
