DeSantis signs bill stripping Disney of its self-governing status around its Florida theme parks

• FL Gov. DeSantis signed a bill on Friday stripping Disney of its special tax status, effective June 2023.
• The legislation is the latest development in the fight between state legislators and Disney over the "Don't Say Gay" bill.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill on Friday to dissolve Walt Disney World's self-governing capabilities, the latest move in an ongoing feud over the company's stance on a controversial state education law known by critics as "Don't Say Gay."

The law orders the Reedy Creek Improvement District — a special tax area that allows Disney to run its parks pseudo-independently of local government — be scrapped.

Florida state legislators created the special taxing and governance district in 1967, in which the landowners — primarily Walt Disney World — would fund its own municipal services, such as power, water, roads, emergency services, and fire protection.

Florida lawmakers on Thursday voted 70-38 to strip the amusement park of such privileges, sending the bill to DeSantis for his signature.

The legislation signed into law Friday seeks to sunset Reedy Creek by June 2023.

The move came after Disney denounced the state's controversial Parental Rights in Education legislation, dubbed by activists and critics as the "Don't Say Gay" bill.

The LGBTQ legislation, signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis on March 28, would, in general, ban discussions of sexuality and gender identity in classrooms from kindergarten to third grade and would allow parents to sue schools if staff members facilitate those conversations. It is set to go into effect on July 1.

In a statement on March 28, the company vowed to actively work to repeal the legislation, saying it "should never have passed and should never have been signed into law."

During a press conference at the bill signing on Friday, DeSantis accused Disney of lying about the education law and said the state legislature viewed the company's denouncing as a "provocation."

"You're a corporation based in Burbank, California, and you're gonna marshal your economic might to attack the parents of my state. We view that as a provocation, and we're going to fight back against that," DeSantis said.

In a statement to Insider, State Senate Minority Leader Gary Farmer said he believes the "ridiculous" anti-Disney bill acts as a "smokescreen" to pass the state's redistricting plan, which split up Black voters and slashed the number of Black districts in half from four to two.

"No one really expects this Reedy Creek dissolution to actually happen, but the threat of sending the rights of Black voters back 50 years into the past is very, very real, that is what we all should be talking about today," Farmer told Insider.