[echoradio]

Short version: Florida’s legislature passed a bill (later signed into law by its governor) which prohibits discussion of “sexual orientation and gender identity” in (presumably only) public school classrooms.

More details: Disney is one of the largest employers in the state and big contributor in taxes to it’s tourism-driven economy. Disney also oversaw its own land management district (the 27k acres which make up Walt Disney World property was, in essence, its own city with a tiny government to boot).

When the bill passed, Disney didn’t speak up. It was criticized by gay employees and fans (of which there are many!). Disney eventually expressed its opposition to the law.

Florida’s state government has a significant GOP majority and didn’t like this. A special session was called by the legislature to eliminate the laws which gave Disney ability to oversee its land management district. (Other districts were caught up in this as well.)

The problem is, this district has $1B to $2B in bonds that Disney was responsible for. Florida law requires the bonds to be assumed by counties when special districts are disbanded. Unless something else changes, the two counties Disney properties straddles are on the hook for this. It’s estimated it would increase the tax burden to over $2,000 for every resident in those counties.

To give you a sense of how quickly this moved, Disney’s CEO publicly came out against the law on March 9. Florida eliminated Disney’s special district this past week.

[sofixa]

> When the bill passed, Disney didn’t speak up

Note: Disney is a major sponsor of politicians in Florida (duh), so they were seen as approving of the bill ( because they were continuing to pay Florida politicians while they had significant leverage over them).

[hansthehorse]

Both counties that this bill screws over are solid blue. Orange was Biden by 23% and Osceola by 13%. Desantis has very little to lose here.