News Reedy Creek Improvement District and the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District

[JoeCamel]

So the previous tweet mentioned about a lawyer saying Disney has no 1A case is based on a interpretation not covered in the thread previously.



The argument is... from a case in MD https://casetext.com/case/kensington-volunteer-fire-dept-inc-v-montgomery-cnty-md where some firefighters were suing that they were targets of retailiation when the local gov took away their funding because they opposed legislation from the gov. (Sound familiar??)

The cited appeals court case found that a legislative action was immune from questioning it's motive because it's the legislature is doing it's work and was 'facially valid'. This case relied upon United States v. O'Brien where SCOTUS ruled a law outlawing destruction of draft cards was valid, even though people were destroying draft cards as a form of protest and being arrested.

But from O'Brian they establish basically a test to quantify if the regulation is actually tailored to the government need instead of just retaliation...


The Kensington case also highlights a difference between government action by decree of one (say.. someone acting as your boss) vs government action via legislative action. And basically saying when the action is from the legislature doing their normal duty, you can't question their motive. (my paraphrasing... you can read the opinion on your own, or the tweet's POV).

This at skin deep is very troublesome... it basically says as long as it's done via the legislative process, it can't be a 1A violation. Clearly you can't take that kind of interpretation unilaterally. One, the O'Brian case key words are that the action is constitutionally valid to start with... so it doesn't negate the idea a law itself can violate the 1A. But the distinction here in the Kensington case (and Disney) is they are talking about the motive behind the law, and if the action was retaliatory. This is what the lawyer is basing his dismissal of Disney's 1A argument over.

Now.. he's the 1A lawyer and I'm not.. but here is why I am not convinced by his conclusion.

The Kensington case doesn't universally give the legislation actions immunity, it says in that case the action was 'facially valid'. It was valid because they later elaborate how the budget change (the action in this case) actually had valid reasoning for things BESIDES just targeting the group in question. Basically.. the budget passed was arguably valid for reasons beyond the 1A retaliation claims.

But this is where I think the Disney case differs... the same arguments of why the Kensington budget moves were validated by motives BESIDES the 1A retaliation... those same kind of other "facially valid" motivations are lacking in the laws passed by the FL legislature. I believe Disney can argue in both the criteria from O'Brian and the judgement from Kensington... that the changes are in fact essentially solely retalitory and not "facially valid" for other reasons. The timelines, the statements made about why the bills were introduced, when they were introduced, the scope of them, their design vs other comparable entities/districts.. I think Disney can defeat the "facially valid" argument that would otherwise give the state's action to change RCID immunity.

What say you?

I don’t know all of the background facts in the other case but I doubt anyone in the local government wrote a book boasting about how they took down a group of woke firefighters. One big difference here is motive is not really in question. The governor and members of the legislature are on public record (and in published works) talking about taking the action to punish Disney.

I only have a knee jerk question from the little I read about the firefighter case but wouldn't them being government employees change the dynamic of the decision. Disney does not work for the state the state works for Disney or is supposed to but as I said I know very little about the cases

 

[JoeCamel]

General is a long way off....things can change so quickly...

Yeah the front runners tend to be big targets and get tossed quickly by the others clawing for the same grift

 

[GoofGoof]

General is a long way off....things can change so quickly...

I’m not saying he couldn’t win the general election. I’m saying that this particular action won’t help that cause which was what the original post was about. Doesn’t really matter how long away the election is.

 

[drnilescrane]

Anyone else feel bad for John Classe? He has been district administrator for years and probably wants ZERO part of this and is now one of the people being sued. Probably wishing the board had fired him sooner like they were threatening in last weeks meeting.

That means John Classe, who has run the day-to-day operations of Disney World’s government since 2016, is on his way out as top executive following the state’s takeover of the district’s board. Classe is interested in getting another job within the district, leaders said Wednesday, although the board did not provide further details about which job.

Source: https://floridapolitics.com/archive...ney-world-governments-district-administrator/

Sounds like the dude's close to retirement anyway and just wants to keep his health insurance.

 

[hopemax]

Funny thing is the resort restaurants are hurting more than park restaurants. Signature restaurants are down the most.

It’s almost as if people are prioritizing their park experience. I wonder if there are any new costs associated with the park experience that would make people reevaluate their spending, and reallocating funds to the places they think are most beneficial to them.

 

[Sir_Cliff]

I’m not saying he couldn’t win the general election. I’m saying that this particular action won’t help that cause which was what the original post was about. Doesn’t really matter how long away the election is.

For one thing, it makes him look like he has very poor judgement. Disney's entire case is based on things he has said publicly, and when you put them all together it's hard to disagree with at least the logic behind Disney's claim regardless of the legality.

I know some were claiming the "joke" about building a prison next to WDW worked in DeSantis' favour politically, but now that there's a lawsuit claiming he was retaliating against the company for its political speech - a lawsuit that was always on the cards - such comments seem obviously and unnecessarily reckless. Overall, it undermines the notion he is a serious candidate.

 

[scottieRoss]

I know bookings are down. Also, Disney sit down restaurants had one of the slowest spring breaks ever. Plus non-park divisions are definitely hurting.

And you know this how? Making up something and calling it a fact is actually not a fact.

 

[castlecake2.0]

Funny thing is the resort restaurants are hurting more than park restaurants. Signature restaurants are down the most.

Would be a great time to give cast back their 40% off at resort restaurants….

 

[flynnibus]

Disney addressed this at length in their complaint. In every section they showed why there was no reason other than retaliation and backed it up pretty well.

Did they though? Obviously they provide tons of cites that it was retaliation based on quotes... but less content about debunking the retort that there were potential legitimate purposes.

Probably the most damning is Paragraph 62 on page 21
Paragraph 63 mainly tries to defend the public interest of the district
Paragraphs 69/70 mentions the deficiencies in that 4C didn't address the spin down of the district, but doesn't really speak to the potential valid purpose.. just that it was done hastily and poorly

Is there much else really trying to speak to the otherwise potentially valid reasons for 4C and 9B?

 

[Sir_Cliff]

Did they though? Obviously they provide tons of cites that it was retaliation based on quotes... but less content about debunking the retort that there were potential legitimate purposes.

Probably the most damning is Paragraph 62 on page 21
Paragraph 63 mainly tries to defend the public interest of the district
Paragraphs 69/70 mentions the deficiencies in that 4C didn't address the spin down of the district, but doesn't really speak to the potential valid purpose.. just that it was done hastily and poorly

Didn't the governor publicly admit that he had never even heard about the district until Disney criticised his legislation? It makes it hard to argue that you proposed to abolish then take over the district for valid reasons when you didn't know what it was or how it worked.

 

[flynnibus]

I think you're right. The motives here are very clear based on statements by the principles. Kensington also is only an appellate decision, it doesn't necessarily control here, while O'Brian does.

Yeah but the Kensington case basically concludes the motives are irrelevant.. as long as the action had (what I'll call) greater valid purposes. One could argue that dissolving out of date constructs would be valid. Or that rescoping RCID had valid purposes as well in terms of modernization, updating the city vs district language, retiring old concepts, etc. I'm not saying those are the ONLY ones, but it speaks to an argument one would make that there are legitimate 'reasons' and not the retaliatory ones alone.

One part of Disney's complaint struck me, in that they demonstrated that this dissolution differed from other dissolutions that have been done in the state previously (in that it lacked a rational for dissolution, a plan for how to break up the district and distribute the assets/debts, etc.):

Yeah but that is more an argument of 'poorly done' and throws doubt into it's completeness... but does it really challenge the argument of done for a valid purpose? The same deficiency basically applied to all the districts in that same way too. Tho obviously the impact at RCID was far greater because of what they had outstanding.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

And it isn't like DeSantis just became governor - if he truly wanted Disney to be treated like everyone else he could have looked into RCID at any point

That's the least compelling part of this. Governors do things late in their terms or in second terms all the time. You can't just say "aha! You didn't do this on Day 1 so you don't really care about it!"

The rest of the retaliatory commentary is much more relevant.

 

[Chi84]

Did they though? Obviously they provide tons of cites that it was retaliation based on quotes... but less content about debunking the retort that there were potential legitimate purposes.

Probably the most damning is Paragraph 62 on page 21
Paragraph 63 mainly tries to defend the public interest of the district
Paragraphs 69/70 mentions the deficiencies in that 4C didn't address the spin down of the district, but doesn't really speak to the potential valid purpose.. just that it was done hastily and poorly

Is there much else really trying to speak to the otherwise potentially valid reasons for 4C and 9B?

I know what you mean, but this is the plaintiff's complaint laying out the elements of its cause of action. When the state files a response identifying legitimate government purposes, Disney will have an opportunity at that time to reply to the response and do the "debunking."

 

[flynnibus]

I don’t know all of the background facts in the other case but I doubt anyone in the local government wrote a book boasting about how they took down a group of woke firefighters. One big difference here is motive is not really in question.

The reason why this is significant is because the case cited concluded that motive is irrelevant when it came to the legislative action (as long as it met the other conditions)

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

I guess we will see! Should be interesting to see how this swings...back and forth...

It’s likely a route…
And could be what Iger boasts as his “crowning achievement.”

…it’s a good bet, actually…as Disney plus isn’t picking up steam, the parks are lagging again and that stock is falling even before the coming market crash

 

[mikejs78]

Is there much else really trying to speak to the otherwise potentially valid reasons for 4C and 9B?

Were those potentially valid reasons ever stated? Their point was that the principles involved stated what the reasons were - to retaliate against Disney.

 

[flynnibus]

Didn't the governor publicly admit that he had never even heard about the district until Disney criticised his legislation? It makes it hard to argue that you proposed to abolish then take over the district for valid reasons when you didn't know what it was or how it worked.

But again.. following this line of thought from the other cases... the motivation wasn't relevant as long as it was part of an action that was in itself considered valid for the legislature.

There are parallels (but not equivalencies) in the same defense that played out in the DA firing in FL.. where basically they said "yes, its retaliation, but he was going to fire you anyway and had the right to... so the 1A angle is moot".

 

[flynnibus]

Were those potentially valid reasons ever stated? Their point was that the principles involved stated what the reasons were - to retaliate against Disney.

The state has made claims on the valid reasons in various venues.

I was speaking more to the point that it's a vector that can undermine Disney's obvious 1A examples. Disney won't have a problem (IMO) proving intent - the issue is, is it actionable? That's what this other lawyer made his case over and I was just trying to discuss that. The response was given that Disney addressed it.. and I don't think they really have (yet).

 

[Chi84]

But again.. following this line of thought from the other cases... the motivation wasn't relevant as long as it was part of an action that was in itself considered valid for the legislature.

There are parallels (but not equivalencies) in the same defense that played out in the DA firing in FL.. where basically they said "yes, its retaliation, but he was going to fire you anyway and had the right to... so the 1A angle is moot".

I'll read the case but in the meantime the complaint addresses what needs to be shown by the state on p. 66 in pars. 180-182.

 

[flynnibus]

I only have a knee jerk question from the little I read about the firefighter case but wouldn't them being government employees change the dynamic of the decision. Disney does not work for the state the state works for Disney or is supposed to but as I said I know very little about the cases

In that case they weren't actually employees and that is actually part of why some of their claims were defeated (in other topics). It's an interesting case to read, as well as the references to O'Brian. Check it out.. certainly made me rethink some of the attacks that would/could be made.