Florida State Rep. Randy Fine announced Tuesday that he has filed a bill that would eliminate special privileges The Walt Disney Company has in the state of Florida.
The move comes after Disney came out in opposition to Florida’s parental rights bill. Gov. Ron DeSantis called on state lawmakers to take action that would dismantle certain protections for Disney during an ongoing special session of the legislature.
“Disney is a guest in Florida. Today, we remind them,” Fine tweeted. “@GovDeSantis just expanded the Special Session so I could file HB3C which eliminates Reedy Creek Improvement District, a 50 yr-old special statute that makes Disney to exempt from laws faced by regular Floridians.”
DeSantis had previously hinted at his support for repealing a 55 year old state lawthat allows Disney to effectively govern itself on the grounds of Walt Disney World.
“What I would say as a matter of first principle is I don’t support special privileges in law just because a company is powerful and they’ve been able to wield a lot of power,” DeSantis said during a press conference last month.
The Reedy Creek Improvement Act was signed into law in May 1967 by Gov. Claude Kirk in response to lobbying efforts by Disney. The entertainment giant proposed building a recreation-oriented development on 25,000 acres of property in a remote area of Central Florida’s Orange and Osceola counties, which consisted of 38.5 square miles of largely uninhabited pasture and swamp land.
