The last one was best!
Perfect picture of the woman who’s kids have watched Frozen 146 times.
I’m a Florida lawyer, and I don’t see how this is unconstitutional. Bad policy, yes, and I’m very glad I’m one county over and won’t have to absorb the tax hike. Long story short, while the legislation is clearly retaliatory, Disney didn’t have a right to a special district in the first place. The legislature is essentially just ending preferential treatment, rather than treating Disney worse than others who are similarly situated and haven’t spoken out.
I also liked, “The angry man on the TV said this is what I was supposed to be angry about this week", and, “If I want me kids groomed by pedophiles, I’ll take them to church”.
I lean towards agreeing but not following the same logic. Holmes once said (paraphrase) “you have a right to free speech, but you don’t have the right to be a policeman.” This was in response to a hypothetical of someone firing a cop over something he said that was politically disagreeable. But it ends up that is not the current state of the law, the current state of the law is you cannot retaliate against a public employee for what they say unless it significantly interferes with your operations or their ability to do their job, OR it relates specifically to something to do with their job performance. I.e. a cop who says “I believe in lying under oath as a good thing”, you can make a compelling argument that police officer’s statements have called into question his fitness for the job. A cop saying “I think you should vote for Democrats and not Republicans”, it would be very difficult to make that argument.
Prof. Dorf argues that this jurisprudence applies to government grants of privilege more broadly, and has cites to back it up. However he also concedes there are certain government positions which are “inherently political”, classic example is an appointed political officer like a cabinet official at the Federal or State level. For those type of public positions, simply being publicly out of political sync with the appointing office, is grounds for the holder of that office to remove you, without a constitutional 1A concern. Dorf’s argument is that Reedy Creek can be seen as essentially an analogue for a public official, but because it was constituted for limited reasons of tax collection and zoning, it isn’t akin to an inherently political office like say, Attorney General. For that reason taking “retaliatory action” against Reedy Creek has to be held to the same standard as retaliatory action taken against, as an example, a police officer. Meaning, retaliation could be appropriate if Reedy Creek was involved in political speech that has some association with its core function, but that if it was just communicating on general political opinions unrelated to its official functions, it would be difficult to justify the retaliation as related to the official functions of the district.
I think Dorf’s argument is compelling if Florida was taking away a grant of privilege directly to Disney over opposition to legislation.
I think because legally, Reedy Creek is not Disney, it is more than just a legal technicality but an important difference, and it is probably not viable to consider an action against Reedy Creek that happens to negatively impact Disney as exactly the same as direct retaliation against Disney. There is also a big difference in the courts between executive officer retaliation (from mayors, governors etc) and “motivations of legislation.” There are some precedents for quashing legislation due to improper motivation, but it is rare. The courts generally view legislative motivation as less germane and are much less likely to strike down a law due to legislative motivation than they would be to quash an executive action that was retaliatory in nature for exercise of protected behaviors.
In any case it looks like legal issues relating to the $2bn in Reedy Creek bonds will likely muck up this effort significantly until/unless DeSantis is willing to write a big taxpayer check.
Is the 1st Amendment about the right to have a special tax district? It’s about the right to speak freely without the government retaliating against you. “abridging freedom of speech” also includes the policy of giving special treatment to persons if and only if they give up the right to speak.
Finally, someone else is reminding us that Disney has a long history of discrimination and exclusion, which is why this power trip by a governor devoted to discrimination and exclusion is such exquisite irony.
You keep frustratingly switching back and forth from theoretical reality to actual reality. On one hand, you will say freedom of speech exist because of theory, even if it’s not actually there in practice. But, on the other side, you keep talking about what would have to be proven in court, which is practical, not theoretical. Things that are “as a matter of law” are at the theory level, not the practical level.
You were arguing that the government, as a matter of law, has the ability to use eminent domain to punish someone they don’t like. That clearly abridges the First Amendment. Yes, in reality, it happens, but that’s because the government is corrupt. It’s not that they have the legal right to do so. It would be the court failing in its duty to enforce the law due to corruption.
If this was something they could do as a matter of law, then it would negate the First Amendment protection of freedom of speech.
As such, I do not think your argument is a good argument for why this sort of political retaliation against Disney is acceptable as a matter of law. And your claim seemed so absurd to me that it seemed you were just coming up with an excuse to defend things here.
Because, even if you think it can happen, you should believe it would be wrong for it to happen. We are talking about a bigoted law here. However, unlike other posters, it isn’t clear if you think the laws here are acceptable and you think that DeSantis is morally justified in this retaliation against Disney for trying to reverse this discriminatory law. Or if you think this is all bad, but regretfully think that they’ll get away with it.
I took you as saying the former, but later posts have led me to think you may be saying the latter.
NM, I misread the point being made.
No, the amendment is not about the right to have a special tax district, and that’s why Disney’s freedom of speech is not implicated here. The First Amendment is about rights, period. Disney has no particular right to an improvement district, and the legislature has the absolute authority to dissolve a special improvement district. The is no difficult than a state legislature deciding to unincorporate a city because the city elected a mayor of the opposing party. Yes, it seems arbitrary and retaliatory, but if state law permits the legislature to do so, there’s no constitutional issue (assuming state law otherwise allows the action).
Regardless of whether this applies in the specific case of Disney and Florida, your claim - that if the government body is allowed to take an action, it may do so no matter what, even in retaliation for protected speech - is factually incorrect.
As established by O’HARE TRUCK SERVICE, INCORPORATED v CITY OF NORTHLAKE.
Surely you agree that the city is allowed to contract with whichever towing services they choose? Surely the First Amendment does not guarantee O’Hare Truck Service, Inc a contract with the City of Northlake?
Yet, the courts found against the city.
This is how the Constitution works?
I’d attempt to rebut other parts of your post, but… really?
O’Hare involved an entity doing business with the state (actually, with a municipal government). That is totally different from an entity which happens to be in the state.
Bloomberg disagrees:
These difficult questions point to the basic contractual issue. By dissolving Reedy Creek, the legislature essentially rewrote the promises made in the district’s bond offerings. Instead of bonds backed by a special district with the power to levy up to 30 mills in taxes, the property tax bonds will be backed jointly by two governments that can only generate a maximum of 10 mills in taxes. …
Both the U.S. and Florida constitutions place strict limitations on the government’s ability to impair its own contracts. Under the U.S. Constitution, a state can only impair an existing contract if the impairment is reasonable and necessary to serve an important government purpose. As early as 1866, the U.S. Supreme Court held that once a local government issues a bond based on an authorized taxing power, the state is contract-bound and cannot eliminate the taxing power supporting the bond. The Florida Constitution provides even greater protection from impairment of contracts.
With this law, the state of Florida has eliminated the government entity that backed the various bonds while violating its own explicit promise not to do so. It is hard to imagine a way that the state could successfully argue that this did not violate its own contractual obligations or unconstitutionally impair the contract between Reedy Creek and the bondholders. …
That is a separate question of whether the elimination of the district violates the First Amendment. In any case, all that really means is that the state may be forced to assume responsibility for the bonds. DeSantis still gets to claim victory over Disney and by the time the bills are due he’s in the White House. (In theory - I earnestly hope that doesn’t happen, though I’d be thrilled to get rid of him.)
Absolute right? No, they gave that up in 1967. They have to follow the terms of the contract that created the special district. Which means, before they can dissolve the district, they must first pay off the $900+ million debt incurred by the district. They haven’t, so the law is moot.
Sorry, but your broad claim here is not in line with Supreme Court precedent, that just because an entity has the power to do something, and an affected entity is not entitled to a privilege, that said entity is simply allowed to revoke the privilege even if it is for exercising a protected right. The constitution applies scrutiny to such actions, and can hold them unconstitutional.
It is valid to say that because the legislative process and determining legislative intent, is generally (but not always), something the courts do not delve into that in this particular case the Florida legislature is in the clear. But your post makes it sound like there is a broad constitutional principle that government can revoke a privilege to which some entity (person / corporation) is not entitled to for any reason–and that is flat wrong constitutionally, and has strong precedent behind it involving multiple cases over several decades.
Okay, so slight hypothetical:
Warner Brothers promises to give big big contributions to DeSantis and Florida GOP legislature members if they dissolve the special district.
This fact is not in doubt in this hypo, so would Florida be allowed to do this?
If you could demonstrate a quid pro quo for money changing hands the individuals involved could suffer bribery charges under Federal law. For this reason there are rules about exactly what lobbyists can say, what services and goods they can transmit etc.
This is a “reality” vs “theory” situation though, high-end professional lobbying know how to structure things so there is never any “provable” quid pro quo, even if there is an actual quid pro quo. Broadly speaking you cannot promise an official act in exchange for a campaign contribution, as it runs afoul of Federal bribery laws. If politicians in the FL Legislature and DeSantis did this, they would have bigger problems than the constitutionality of the action itself, but more problems with being placed in Federal prison. Again though, professional lobbying efforts are heavily arranged around avoiding any recorded/provable quid pro quo.
Although many here are arguing that point, that is not the only debate here.
Bloomberg has make it clear that DeSantis’s little act of homophobic revenge is unconstitutional.
And Florida can’t just all that really means is that the state may be forced to assume responsibility for the bonds. .
The article goes on to show:. Florida could theoretically get rid of some of these contractual issues by writing a giant check to prepay or “redeem” the bonds, but that’s prevented by at least one of the outstanding bonds—2018’s utility revenue bond prohibits redemption until October of 2029.
So, it IS unconstitutional. Maybe not under the 1st Ad, but still, an illegal bill.