At the time, Disney was planning a massive expansion in Florida, including moving 2,000 employees in its Burbank-based Imagineering department to a new $1 billion campus in the Lake Nona community near Orlando. (The Reedy Creek Improvement District was not the only place like this in the state Florida actually has 1,844 of these tax districts, including the second-most famous: a golf-cart retirement community named the Villages.)ĭeSantis first called on legislators to revoke Disney’s Reedy Creek Improvement District in March 2022 after Disney employees successfully pushed the company to publicly disavow and help fight to repeal the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which the governor had just signed into law. Over the next five decades, it basically operated as its own separate, functioning government, with elected officials, a planning department, a water department, the aforementioned fire department, and even oversight of the country’s largest monorail system. The Reedy Creek Improvement District was created by the state in 1967 to help Disney speed up construction of Disney World and EPCOT. Why does Disney have so much power in the state in the first place?Īfter the success of Disneyland in California, Walt Disney was looking at expanding his theme-park empire and Florida eagerly handed him control of 38.5 square miles of swampland outside Orlando. But it quickly became clear that Disney had a few tricks up its sleeve, including, notably, an 11th-hour clause invoking King Charles III and his progeny’s progeny, and a First Amendment lawsuit. While Disney still retains plenty of privileges in the state, DeSantis claimed victory at the bill-signing (which, by pure coincidence, took place on the eve of his book launch, a memoir billed as “a firsthand account from the blue-collar boy who grew up to take on Disney and Dr. The company also pledged to stop giving money to Florida politicians and candidates who supported it, including DeSantis. The press conference was a celebration where DeSantis signed a bill largely stripping Disney of the ability to self-govern its kingdom within a state - the Reedy Creek Improvement District.ĭeSantis has been at war with Disney since early 2022, when the company denounced his “Don’t Say Gay” legislation, which, in part, prohibits public schools from offering classroom instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity to children younger than third grade and greatly constrains what students of all ages can hear in their classrooms. “There’s a new sheriff in town and accountability will be the order of the day.” The town in question, more or less, is Disney World. “Today the corporate kingdom finally comes to an end,” Florida governor Ron DeSantis announced on March 27 at the Reedy Creek fire station, an enormous American flag draped behind him. Photo: Ricardo Buxeda/Orlando Sentinel/Tribune News Service via Getty Images
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