Florida Speaker of the House Chris Sprowls (R) was on Ben Shapiro's extended podcast today regarding the RCID matter. Unfortunately, I cannot link to the full conversation, as it is behind a paywall.
To be clear: I am writing this post with no statement that what I am summarizing is necessarily: 1.) Unbiased journalism, 2.) Not subject to partisan spin by either Shapiro or Sprowls, or 3.) Wholly factual. Sprowls is obviously a partisan figure, and Shapiro is a noted conservative commentator.
The following is summarized and paraphrased for brevity purposes. It is not a complete transcript and is intended to give you an idea of where Sprowls stands on the current state of affairs.
Shapiro: What prompted this move? Some say this is a violation of the first amendment and is happening because Disney spoke out. What actually drove the move?
Sprowls: Disney drew attention to themselves and misled the public. They said that the parental rights bill is the "don't say gay" bill, a "hater bill." They went with the "woke mob" and misled Floridians. Florida has these special districts, but only one is a massive corporation, and that's Disney. In looking back, there's only been nine special districts since 1967 who have never been touched, before the Florida constitution, and one of them is Disney. The rest of them are things like law libraries, mosquito control districts; only one is a massive corporation. Only one has the benefit to essentially "self govern."
It's a radical amount of power that's never been touched, and we felt it was a good opportunity to "get back into the special districts" and say "Look Disney, we're going to treat you like every other company in the state.
Shapiro: About the financial implications: because Disney's tax district is being taken away in 2023 (assuming negotiations do not work), it might be up to the taxpayers to pickup Disney's debt which may be billions. How is that going to work out?
Sprowls: The criticism is levied by people who want to "muddy the water" and it "couldn't be further from the truth." Disney is already paying taxes into RCID, there are lots of ways to restructure so the same amount of money is there and the services can be kept. In the next 12 months, they have an opportunity to figure out the best way to restructure, but the idea that the taxpayers are going to be saddled with millions or hundreds of millions of debt is just not true.
Shapiro: So how exactly are things going to change for Disney once RCID is gone? There are other major tourist attractions in the Orlando area which don't have these special exemptions, (Universal, SeaWorld). So how will this impact Disney?
Sprowls: Greater accountability. Now they're going to be treated like Universal, SeaWorld, Busch Gardens. Like every other theme park business. You don't get to engage in your own self-government, which is has been for quite some time. Florida hasn't looked at RCID structure since Lyndon Johnson was POTUS. I think it was time we took a look at it. This legislature has really pushed back on things like corporate cronyism, corporate welfare, breaking up special taxing districts. I was asked on ABC "isn't it true you only care about these special taxing districts because of Disney?" Well nothing can be further from the truth. 4-5 years ago when we were redoing our [state] constitution, I proposed referending [sic?] every single special tax district in the state of Florida. Whether you're mosquito control, hospital or Disney, think how long are you special? Are you special since Lyndon Johnson was POTUS? The reality is Disney needs to have some level of accountability; they need to be treated like every other business in the state of Florida.
Shapiro: Has Disney reached out to the legislature or governor in order to renegotiate the terms of what will happen to RCID? So far, they suggestion is they have been silent, which for them, would be a change considering how loud they were over the parental rights bill.
Sprowls: I can't speak for the governor. I can tell you that they haven't reached out to me. They havent wanted to sit down and chat about what this would look like. I think the reality is that this was a decision that was made in California. The folks who are executives in Florida probably said, and I'm speculating, "hey this is a bad idea." But this was driven by corporate board rooms and employees in California who wanted to impose their values in the state of Florida. And I think for the first time, Disney was way outside their lane. This was not something we've seen. Disney for a long time has been going woke in their content, but when it comes to policies passed by the legislature, they typically stayed in the what's good for the theme park, what's good for the business? sort of lane. The reality is they've been a huge beneficiary of being in Florida. Their theme park in California was shut down for so long. So long that they wanted to move thousands of employees to Lake Nona because they couldn't do business in CA. They benefited from being in Florida, and we benefited from having them here. But they need to be treated like everyone else, and they shouldn't have an opportunity because they're Disney to mislead the public when it came to the parental rights in education bill.
Shapiro: What do you make of Gov. Jared Polis of CO in wanting to setup a "mountain" Disneyland or Disney World? First of all, the weather there would be prohibitive. I don't see major tourist attractions opearating in the dead of winter when it's 20 degrees outside. Nonetheless, what do you make of it?
Sprowls: Nothing says you're welcome here more like recreational marijuana and super high taxes? There's no chance that Disney is going to put Cinderella Castle on a dolley and move it to Colorado; that's not happening. There's folks who want to get clicks on Twitter, but the reality is Disney is here for the long haul. If I move my business, and the same goes for any business in the state of Florida, if I move it to Colorado or California, or New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, first of all, they'd be the only person in Florida who would be doing that. Nobody wants to pay higher taxes, nobody wants to move to states where they keep you locked up in your house for an entire year, where they don't allow your kids to go to school. So people are saying "Florida is becoming anti-business" but that's ridiculous. We are the most business friendly state in America. We continuously rank that way. We're just not going to allow businesses to dictate how we run our state, nor should they be treated differently than any other business in the state. I don't want to explain to a dry cleaner why they don't get a particular benefit but Disney does. The reality is Disney is a huge part of our business climate, they're going to continue to benefit, but they're going to be treated like everyone else.
Shapiro: I talked to Governor DeSantis recently and I pointed out that the big story with Disney is not Disney, but the "dog that didn't bark." When it came to Georgia, they passed their voter ID laws, and a bevy of companies decided they are going to sound off on this, ranging from MLB to Coca Cola to Delta; they all decided it was time to get active and start talking woke politics. We saw in North Carolina when there was a suggestion that there should be separate men and women's bathrooms, and virtually every company doing business in Charolette decided to sound off. When it came to the parental rights in education bill, Disney sounded off and they got clocked so hard by public opinion that nobody else sounded off. The pushback that came from DeSantis and people like me in the media, people like the legislature, has been strong enough that corporations have been given the freedom to say to the left: "there's pressure from the other side. You guys have had free reign to put pressure on us and we've responded, but now we're not going to respond to that pressure because the simple fact is that there's pressure from the other side, so it's best that we intervene politically when it directly affects our business."
Sprowls: That's exactly right. When we were going through this, the prevailing narrative when the House passed the bill was "it's the don't say gay bill." You were the first one in the media who really started to push back and say "these people aren't even bothering to read this four page bill." It's double spaced and underlined. Now you see, even in mainstream media, they'll say "what critics call the "don't say gay bill"" You were the first one to push back on it.
Now to your point about punching back and now it's quiet, I think there's a huge opportunity here. I had a CEO who I think highly of and he said to me "everybody's sort of nervous. What does this mean?" I said here's what it means: this is a huge opportunity for you and your business. The next time some employee says or some radical on the fringe that has nothing to do with your core business, comes after you, you get to say "we're going to stay in our lane. we're going to stay to our mission... We're not going to start dictating to the legislature. We're going to be making sure we're not getting into a false narrative and misleading parents." So my hope is that the corporate CEOs and boardrooms in Florida use this as an opportunity to say "guys guess what? We get to get back to business and focus on our core mission."
Shapiro: That is my hope as well. What do you think are the chances the legislation is held as opposed to knocked down, in light of probable lawsuits?
Sprowls: I think it will be upheld. If they sue, they'll probably try to argue that this was just for Disney. But that's not true. Nine special districts were before the 1968 constitution included in this bill, it's more than just Disney that will be impacted. I think they're going to have a hard case. If they sue they will probably lose. I think they're smart enough not to do that.
Again, Shapiro is a noted conservative commentator and Sprowls is an elected Republican. I am in no way stating that this is unbiased journalism or is necessarily accurate information. This comes from an opinion program. I only spent the last 30+ minutes typing it out and trying to keep up with Ben's 2.5x normal speaking voice to bring it to anyone who might be interested to hear the thoughts of a a major player in this legislation.
