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Credit: Inside the MagicFlorida Governor Ron DeSantis is in another political pickle amid multiple ongoing battles against The Walt Disney Company.
Governor DeSantis is busy preparing for the Republican National Convention (RNC) in Milwaukee this week, where he’ll speak alongside presidential-race-competitor-turned-endorsee former President Donald Trump. The RNC allegedly scrambled to invite DeSantis after CNN reported that he and fellow former presidential candidate Nikki Haley were excluded from the political event.
Long before his failed presidential campaign, DeSantis started a war against the House of Mouse. In 2022, he went after Walt Disney World Resort’s Reedy Creek Improvement District. After former CEO Bob Chapek disavowed the Parental Rights in Education Act (“Don’t Say Gay”) and paused political campaigns to legislators that supported the anti-LGBTQIA+ bill, DeSantis legally dissolved the decades-old municipal area.
Last year, DeSantis hand-selected board members to control the municipality, which he renamed the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District. Disney CEO Bob Iger threatened to pull billions of dollars in investments from Florida and sued DeSantis, accusing the Republican governor of violating its constitutionally protected right to free speech.
A federal judge dismissed the lawsuit in January of this year. Though Disney vowed to keep fighting, things have largely returned to normal in Florida. Construction finally wrapped on rethemes like Tiana’s Bayou Adventure and the Country Bear Musical Jamboree, and Iger promised to spend billions improving Walt Disney World Resort over the next decade. The Mouse even resumed political donations after a two-year pause.
Still, some things have changed. The once-exclusive Joffrey’s Coffee x Disney collaboration merchandise recently spread in stores nationwide, leading some fans to believe Walt Disney World Resort was expanding its operations. Walt Disney Imagineering never revisited its canceled move from Southern California to Lake Nona, Florida.
DeSantis faces another challenge in Florida as the battle with Disney dies down. Satanists are volunteering to fill empty school counselor positions throughout the state after the governor signed HB 1317, permitting religious chaplains to work in public schools.
“Nothing in the text of the bill serves to exclude us, and no credible interpretation of the First Amendment could,” Lucien Greaves, cofounder and spokesperson for The Satanic Temple, told The Hill. “Should a school district now choose to have chaplains, they should expect Satanists to participate as well.”
When DeSantis signed the bill, he insisted that Satanism was “not a religion” and that he wouldn’t allow members of The Satanic Temple into Florida public schools.
“We’re not playing those games in Florida,” DeSantis said. “That is not a religion. That is not qualifying to be able to participate… We’re going to be using common sense…You don’t have to worry about that.”
Greaves claims the governor “openly lied to the public.”
“Either entirely ignorant of the most basic fundamentals of constitutional law, or too incompetent to care, DeSantis fails to recognize that it is not the place of the government to confer unique rights to one religious identity while denying them to another,” he told The Hill.
HB 1317 impacts almost three million students who attend public schools in Florida, including school systems near Walt Disney World Resort.
Is Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis good for the state? In the comments, share your opinion with Inside the Magic.