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

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scottieRoss

Well-Known Member
I am confused by the posters who think that Disney should have or should compromise with Florida. They want state-appointed or county representatives. Having read the RCID enabling legislation, it seems that the legislation was to work with Disney to create a recreational and tourist development. I do not see anywhere that RCID was designed to regulate them.
Just like any other municipal government, it was designed to serve the residents and landholders of the District.
This is no different than my small town city council. They are here to serve the residents. So if I can gather enough residents to put together my slate of council members and get them elected what is different that what Disney did? It just was a lot easier to find 51 or 98% of the landholders. In my situation, Texas is not going to remove the council and put in their own state-appointed council to regulate our town. This seems to be nothing more than a First Amendment issue. RCID or CFTOB is not a regulator, they are there to serve the residents.
 
lazyboy97o

lazyboy97o

Well-Known Member
scottieRoss said:
I am confused by the posters who think that Disney should have or should compromise with Florida. They want state-appointed or county representatives. Having read the RCID enabling legislation, it seems that the legislation was to work with Disney to create a recreational and tourist development. I do not see anywhere that RCID was designed to regulate them.
Just like any other municipal government, it was designed to serve the residents and landholders of the District.
This is no different than my small town city council. They are here to serve the residents. So if I can gather enough residents to put together my slate of council members and get them elected what is different that what Disney did? It just was a lot easier to find 51 or 98% of the landholders. In my situation, Texas is not going to remove the council and put in their own state-appointed council to regulate our town. This seems to be nothing more than a First Amendment issue. RCID or CFTOB is not a regulator, they are there to serve the residents.
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The District does enforce regulations, the most famous being the EPCOT Building Code. It created a regulatory environment where one largely did not exist.
 
R

RamblinWreck

Well-Known Member
ParentsOf4 said:
In O'Hare Truck Service v the City of Northlake, the Court's two most stanch conservatives (Scalia and Thomas) argued that Freedom of Speach protections are limited:

The First Amendment guarantees that you and I can say and believe whatever we like (subject to a few tradition based exceptions, such as obscenity and "fighting words") without going to jail or being fined. What it ought to guarantee beyond that is not at all the simple question the Court assumes.​

In Citizens United, the Court's four most liberal justices (Stevens, Sotomayor, Ginsburg, and Breyer) argued that Freedom of Speach protections can be based on the "speaker's identity":

“Our jurisprudence over the past 216 years has rejected an absolutist interpretation” of the First Amendment. WRTL, 551 U. S., at 482 (opinion of ROBERTS, C. J.). The First Amendment provides that “Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.” Apart perhaps from measures designed to protect the press, that text might seem to permit no distinctions of any kind. Yet in a variety of contexts, we have held that speech can be regulated differentially on account of the speaker’s identity, when identity is understood in categorical or institutional terms. The Government routinely places special restrictions on the speech rights of students, prisoners, members of the Armed Forces, foreigners, and its own employees.​

We have both liberal and conservative justices arguing that Freedom of Speach rights are not absolute, that the Constitution provides only limited protection. Note that both cases involve corporations.

Citizens United is a 5-4 decision, and most of us are old enough to remember that it was (and remains) highly controversial. The news media in particular viciously attacked the ruling.

The current Court has not shied away from overturning precedent they believe was decided wrongly. Indeed, during his confirmation process, there was much hope that Gorsuch would vote to overturn Citizens United, if given the opportunity.

As you note, a decision from the Supreme Court could "significantly change how free speech works for corporations."
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I wasn’t paying much attention back then, but I do recall it.

Wasn’t a significant amount of the controversy less to do with whether or not speech was protected, but more to do with whether or not money was considered speech?
 
Brian

Brian

Well-Known Member
RamblinWreck said:
Wasn’t a significant amount of the controversy less to do with whether or not speech was protected, but more to do with whether or not money was considered speech?
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Yes, which is why I don't think the RCID case is the right one for the justices to overturn Citizens. The basis for RCID is government retaliation against a corporation for protected speech, while Citizens was campaign finance contributions made by corporations is protected speech.
 
mikejs78

mikejs78

Premium Member
ParentsOf4 said:
Criticism of Citizens United is not limited to one area. Many have attacked it for many reasons.

Within the context of the dissent, opposition can be broadly grouped into two categories:
  1. Money used for corruption (or the appearance of corruption).
  2. The disproportionate power of corporations to influence the political process.
The second one in particular applies to Disney. As Stevens wrote in his dissent:

“‘[T]he resources in the treasury of a business corporation,’” furthermore, “‘are not an indication of popular support for the corporation’s political ideas.’” ... “‘They reflect instead the economically motivated decisions of investors and customers. The availability of these resources may make a corporation a formidable political presence, even though the power of the corporation may be no reflection of the power of its ideas.’”​
​
It might also be added that corporations have no consciences, no beliefs, no feelings, no thoughts, no desires. Corporations help structure and facilitate the activities of human beings, to be sure, and their “personhood” often serves as a useful legal fiction. But they are not themselves members of “We the People” by whom and for whom our Constitution was established.​
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Yes but Stevens also went on to say

We have long since held that
corporations are covered by the First Amendment, and
many legal scholars have long since rejected the conces-
sion theory of the corporation.
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.

His dissent was focused almost exclusively around money and electioneering. In fact, he references back to Bellotti to support his argument, and speaks favorably about that decision. So I think the progressive justices position on this is more nuanced than you're indicating here.
 
C

Cliff

Well-Known Member
All of this doomsday, WWIII talk is all just an over reaction. No...the sky is NOT falling. Disney will learn to live under the Central Florida Tourism Oversight (whatever it's new name is).....just like the way Disneyland has learned to live with the city of Anaheim.

Yes....Disney gets REALL angry and upset when Anaheim tells them "no!". Yes...Disney gets furious when the sate of California tells them "no!" too. But, Disney eventually swallows their pride and learns how to be plenty profitable in the face of public oversight.

Disney has to deal with "no" in every place they have operations. France, China, Hong Kong, Florida, Japan and California. Yes...Disney hates to hear the word "no!" and they always gasp "how dare you tell us that?"

In Florida....Disney will be FINE! They will just ADAPT public oversight the same way they do everywhere else.
 
mikejs78

mikejs78

Premium Member
ParentsOf4 said:
there is case law that conservative justices could point to, if they decided against Disney.
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You are pointing to dissents, which aren't considered case law. Again, though, Stevens dissent is geared against corporate *money* expenditures in *elections*. That's very different than making a statement about a bill.. I imagine that must justices who would be OK with legal limitations on Disney *spending* on lobbying against the bill would be opposed to limits on *statements*, which are the purist form of speech imaginable.

Another point of difference in most of the case law is that it has to do with laws on the books that regulate corporate expenditures. Here, we don't have a law on the books that prohibited Disney's statement. There was no FL law that said that Disney couldn't speak out. Everything was done after the fact. And I doubt the conservatives would want to overturn Citizens, as that case is something that is very important to their donor class.

The big question mark for me is still if the justices will want to make the leap to legislative intent. I think the three progressives will - not sure if they can get two of the Roberts/Kavanaugh/Gorsuch/Barrett to join them. Of course, by the time this case reaches the court, if it does, it's possible the makeup of the court will have changed.

ParentsOf4 said:
Disney certainly intends to spend corporate funds to fight the "Don't Say Gay" Act.
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That's irrelevant because it didn't actually happen.

Cliff said:
All of this doomsday, WWIII talk is all just an over reaction. No...the sky is NOT falling. Disney will learn to live under the Central Florida Tourism Oversight (whatever it's new name is).....just like the way Disneyland has learned to live with the city of Anaheim.

Yes....Disney gets REALL angry and upset when Anaheim tells them "no!". Yes...Disney gets furious when the sate of California tells them "no!" too. But, Disney eventually swallows their pride and learns how to be plenty profitable in the face of public oversight.

Disney has to deal with "no" in every place they have operations. France, China, Hong Kong, Florida, Japan and California. Yes...Disney hates to hear the word "no!" and they always gasp "how dare you tell us that?"

In Florida....Disney will be FINE! They will just ADAPT public oversight the same way they do everywhere else.
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Disney World is a completely different beast than Disneyland or any other park. The infra needs of Disney World are orders of magnitude higher than DL. Besides, the new board is intent on *punishing* Disney, not just taking oversight.

And regardless of that, no one should be comfortable about the government retaliating against anyone for their constitutionally protected speech, whether or not one agrees with that speech.
 
JAB

JAB

Well-Known Member
Cliff said:
All of this doomsday, WWIII talk is all just an over reaction. No...the sky is NOT falling. Disney will learn to live under the Central Florida Tourism Oversight (whatever it's new name is).....just like the way Disneyland has learned to live with the city of Anaheim.

Yes....Disney gets REALL angry and upset when Anaheim tells them "no!". Yes...Disney gets furious when the sate of California tells them "no!" too. But, Disney eventually swallows their pride and learns how to be plenty profitable in the face of public oversight.

Disney has to deal with "no" in every place they have operations. France, China, Hong Kong, Florida, Japan and California. Yes...Disney hates to hear the word "no!" and they always gasp "how dare you tell us that?"

In Florida....Disney will be FINE! They will just ADAPT public oversight the same way they do everywhere else.
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If it were just about the state changing the regulations for legitimate oversight reasons that applied to everyone, I might agree with you. However, the governor and at least one member of the board have publicly admitted that they targeted Disney and planned to use control of the district as leverage against TWDC to influence what content the company made. It's not about simple government oversight.
 

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