Ron DeSantis has unveiled the latest act of retaliation against Disney for speaking out against his “don’t say gay” law: he’s threatening to build a new state prison next to the company’s central Florida theme parks.
The Republican governor dropped the suggestion at a hastily convened Monday lunchtime press conference, at which he laid out steps the state legislature would take to try to regain control over Florida’s largest private employer.
The move is the latest in an ongoing feud that began in March 2022 when Disney’s then chief executive Bob Chapek spoke out against a bill limiting discussion of sexuality and gender identity in Florida elementary school classrooms, dubbed the “don’t say gay” law.
DeSantis attempted to seize power over Disney in February by firing its controlling board and installing a handpicked board of Republican allies, including one who helped craft the education bill.
But the hard-right governor, a likely candidate for his party’s 2024 presidential nomination, found himself humiliated in March when it emerged that the outgoing board, in a final act of defiance, made an agreement to hand over control to the company itself.
Smarting from that move, DeSantis on Monday denounced the agreement as a legally unsound “sham”, and announced a new measure that would return control of the special district that is home to Disney World to a state oversight board run by the governor’s appointees.
Among other things, the new measures include passing authority for the inspection of theme park rides and transportation to the state, increasing Disney’s tax burden, and giving the newly constituted board the power to decide how to develop land adjacent to Disney’s theme parks. DeSantis suggested that the new board could take other actions with Disney’s 27,000 acres (10,926 hectares) in central Florida, such as building a state park, a competing theme park or a prison.
“I think the possibilities are endless,” DeSantis said.
Critics were quick to condemn DeSantis’s latest proposals. Brandon Wolf, press secretary for Equality Florida, said it was a “truly unhinged display of ego”.
State representative Anna Eskamani pointed out that areas of south Florida were still underwater from last week’s floods while DeSantis was creating “more Disney drama”.
