It's Been Seven Months - What's Happening Now?

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/new-study-disney-generates-40-billion-in-annual-economic-impact-in-florida-and-over-quarter-of-a-million-jobs-301987814.html

The Disney versus DeSantis battle began April 28, 2023, exactly seven months prior to when I am writing this. There's been a lot of back-and-forth between the two parties, a lawsuit, endless media attention, and more. In one of my other articles I explained the timeline of events for the whole situation, but what has happened in the past two or three months? Let's get caught up on everything.

Long story short: DeSantis made a political decision that has been deemed the "Don't Say Gay" bill, Disney CEO at the time spoke out about his disapproval, DeSantis seems to have been targeted Disney due to their public disapproval, and Disney has been fighting back. Obviously, there's more details to the situation, but I just want to cover the most recent events.

According to Birle (2023), there are updates regarding the federal lawsuit, state lawsuit, and more. The federal lawsuit, which Disney filed against the state of Florida for infringing on their freedom of speech, was filed to be dismissed by DeSantis and the board of the Central Florida Tourism District. This is because DeSantis doesn't believe Disney doesn't have an argument. A decision will be made whether to dismiss the case on December 12.

As for the state lawsuit, Florida is suing Disney with a claim that Disney undermined the power of the CFTOD board. Disney attempted to dismiss the case, but this dismissal failed in July. A summary judgment will be made at a hearing date on March 12, 2024.

Lastly, Disney seems to try to be appealing to the public and possibly other government officials inside and outside of Florida. Disney commissioned an Oxford Economics study to assess their impact on the state of Florida in 2022. The study found that "Disney generated $40.3 billion in total economic impact for the state and generated $3.1 billion in annual local and state tax" (Birle, 2023). Disney also generated 263,000 jobs in Florida, meaning that if Disney didn't exist then the unemployment rate in Florida would rise from 3% to 5.4%.

So it looks like this feud will be lasting at minimum until March 2024. Until then, who knows what will go down between Disney and DeSantis.

Citation

Birle, J. (2023, November 19). Sunshine State Feud: The latest on the battle between Disney and desantis. Washington Examiner. https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/sunshine-state-feud-latest-battle-between-disney-desantis