Last year, when Florida Republicans were preparing to crack down on social media companies, Gov. Ron DeSantis’ staff was working behind the scenes to help Disney avoid any pain.
Disney had cut DeSantis’ campaign committee a $50,000 check four weeks earlier — the fourth contribution from the company — and didn’t want to face the same regulations DeSantis had threatened for Facebook and Twitter.
So the governor’s staff worked with Disney, according to records unearthed by the new Florida money-and-politics website Seeking Rents. Staffers sent emails to each other and legislative staffers with lines like “Latest from Disney,” “Disney responded with this” and “New Disney language.”
Just hours later, legislators would do what Disney wanted. They inserted new language into the bill that said the social media crackdown wouldn’t apply to any company that “owns and operates a theme park.”
DeSantis had said his goal was to hold powerful companies “accountable.” But the law he signed ensured Disney would escape that accountability.
A federal judge would later strike down the law, noting that lawmakers had clearly tried to help “favored Florida businesses.”
Why is this recent history relevant today? Because today, lawmakers are frothing at the mouth about how Disney doesn’t deserve special treatment.
I agree. In fact, I’ve written many columns through the years saying so. Yet that special treatment was granted to Disney over and over by the very same politicians now fuming about it.
It’s like hearing Cruella De Vil lecture you on puppy love.
So what’s changed? Well, Disney had the recent audacity to do two things — criticize the GOP lawmakers’ so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill and tell those lawmakers the company would no longer donate to their campaigns.
The “Don’t Say Gay” criticism miffed them. But after Disney announced it was withholding future campaign donations, they flew into fits of retaliatory rage.
At the governor’s press conference last week, DeSantis railed against the special treatment Disney got in the social media-crackdown bill, calling it “ridiculous” and “embarrassing” and “never appropriate.”
Nobody was angrier about the law Ron DeSantis signed than Ron DeSantis … after he’d been cut off.
DeSantis said: “I don’t support special privileges in law just because a company is powerful and they’ve been able to wield a lot of power.”
Except he did. He literally signed those special privileges into law.
DeSantis certainly isn’t alone. Many Florida politicians from both parties have been loyal lackeys for Disney until just a few weeks ago. They just hope you’re too dumb to notice.
And too dumb to notice the favors they’re still doing for other donors.
That’s the other thing you should know: The favoritism continues for other industries and companies. Including other theme parks.
Universal Orlando, for instance, has pocketed millions of dollars through a ridiculous exploitation of a tax break intended to help “high crime” neighborhoods. The program was intended to spur investments in blighted neighborhoods. Yet Universal has gotten millions of dollars — way more than anyone else in Florida — for swanky restaurants and four-star hotels.
We’ve written about this scam for years. And lawmakers have admitted Universal should be cut off. But they’ve never managed to stand up to their loyal donor … for $ome $trange rea$on.
Then there’s the anti-solar energy law legislators passed last month. The Miami Herald documented how Florida Power & Light wrote the bill, delivered it to the office of the GOP Senate sponsor and then followed up with a $10,000 contribution.
In another case several years ago, lawmakers did their donor buddies in the timeshare industry a favor by passing a law that allows the companies to offer fewer consumer protections and limits the companies’ legal liability when customers discover company-made errors in the contracts.
Think about that. What other industry gets statutory protection from mistakes they make in their own legal documents? And why on earth would anyone want consumers to have fewer protections? Especially in an industry rife with complaints.
Welcome to the world of donor-inspired policy.
Yet now that Disney has vowed to stop donating, DeSantis and GOP lawmakers are not only threatening to repeal the special theme-park exemption they provided last year, they’re saying Disney should no longer be entitled to special statutes that essentially allow the company to act like a private municipality.
Um, yeah. Of course Disney shouldn’t have its own freakin’ government! The Orlando Sentinel has been writing and raising questions about Disney’s government, Reedy Creek, for half a century. Heck, more than two decades ago, a local college professor wrote an entire book about how the company had conned and sweet-talked state and local officials into giving Disney virtually everything it wanted.
But none of these state lawmakers gave a flying fairy about all the special treatment and incentive deals Disney received until Disney stood up for LGBTQ families and said it was financially cutting off the politicians.
These politicians aren’t standing up for good government. They’re standing up for legalized bribery.
They’re happy to grant special treatment to special interests — but only as long as those interests keep the checks coming and their mouths shut. It’s just kind of remarkable they’re being so candid about it.
In fact, this is one of the rare instances where DeSantis and the usually savvy Republicans screwed up politically — by shining a white-hot spotlight on the ugly inner workings of their pay-for-play political machine.
Because in vowing to end these special favors for Disney, everyone is now asking: Well, why did you allow them in the first place?
And why are you still allowing them for everyone else?
