"Florida’s best defense is to pretend they are punishing Disney for legitimate reasons
While existing law is crystal clear that the government may not sanction someone because it disagrees with their political views, First Amendment retaliation cases are often difficult to win because the plaintiff must prove that they were targeted because of their speech. As the Court explained in Hartman, such a plaintiff “must show a causal connection between a defendant’s retaliatory animus and subsequent injury in any sort of retaliation action.”
But in this case, the evidence that Florida targeted Disney because of its protected speech is overwhelming. DeSantis called upon Florida lawmakers to consider “termination” of Reedy Creek on Tuesday. On Wednesday, he sent a fundraising email to supporters where he denounced Disney for being “woke” and for criticizing him personally.
The email was explicit that DeSantis wants to punish Disney for its political views and because the governor believes that Disney is too close to the opposition party. “Disney and other woke corporations won’t get away with peddling their unchecked pressure campaigns any longer,” DeSantis said in his email. “If we want to keep the Democrat machine and their corporate lapdogs accountable, we have to stand together now.”
I really would like it if Mickey Mouse sue DeSantis and FL for violating his rights. And I wonder what GOPers would say if a Liberal state did something similar? :-O
17 comments:
It's an interesting reversal of roles. The Walt Disney Company is the kind of oligopolistic right wing corporate monster that the left should routinely despise, while blissing out the Bruno side. And the right depends on corporate dollars from Disney and it's ilk just to survive. But what I expect is this to die down and pretty quickly. Disney and Desantis will make up and the flood of Disney dollars to Florida Republicans will resume.
--Hiram
Disney is a media conglomerate.
I assume the Far Righters will keep attacking them.
But as a media conglomerate, Disney is a huge supporter of the Republican Party. Nothing about their little dust up with DeSantis changes that.
--Hiram
I am pretty sure they support plenty of GOP and DEM politicians.
The easily-Googlable data shows Disney has given a lot more to GOP politicians in Florida than Democrats. Heck, they even gave money to Republicans AFTER Don't Say Gay passed one house of the Legislature. But, hey, raising your own taxes is a helluva way to own the libs!
Sean,
I find different data on that?
It looks like mostly they give to DEMs, except one of the CEOs gave a lot to Trump's PAC.
Those are federal contributions, not state contributions.
Well if you have better source???
My point is that "Disney" is made up of all types of people and has many interests...
Therefore they give to many different politicians.
I'm not talking about Disney employees, I'm talking about the company itself.
Well I have given you 2 sources.
It's not hard to find.
Now you are starting to sound like Jerry... :-)
Here's one example. Top search result for the search phrase: Disney political donations Florida
POLITICO: Disney pledges to stop Florida campaign donations over ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill
I'll send you a bill at my hourly rate.
And what should I learn from that?
"Disney donated some $4.8 million to Florida candidates in the 2020 election cycle, campaign finance reports show. Disney during the 2020 election cycle donated $913,000 to the Republican Party of Florida and another $586,000 to GOP Senate campaigns, records show. The company also donated $313,000 to the Florida Democratic Party and $50,000 directly to DeSantis."
That Disney gave $1,549,000 to the GOP and $3,251,000 to some on else?
I think that is what I have been saying.
The scale of donations to Republican party units is larger than Democratic party units. And given that Florida state government is controlled by Republicans, that carries across donations to individual politicians -- which you can find in other searches. So the notion that Disney has been this anti-conservative force in FL politics is utterly absurd.
I never said they were anti-GOP...
I just said that they lobby both tribes as fits their need.
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