Florida Republican lawmakers are considering a bill to undo another passed back in April which stripped Disney World of its self-governing status, Reuters reports. The Reedy Creek improvement district, a special entity created in 1967 to allow Disney to maintain its own public infrastructure and streamline construction approvals, was pulled by the state at the urging of Napoleonic Governor Ron DeSantis in a petty bullshit move after the company spoke out about the draconian “Don’t Say Gay” law effectively banning LGBT teachers from working in schools.
The dumbest part of this shitshow was not that the revocation would have stuck taxpayers in adjacent counties with $2 billion in debt and other costs to assume control of Disney’s territory nor that it was authoritarian political retaliation. It was that the fanboys cheering it on justified it by saying shit like “Disney never should’ve had its own government in the first place” as if they fucking even knew it did or it was ever a problem to them before the whole “groomer” obsession earlier this year. The merits of whether or not the company should be able to control its environs are an interesting one. On one hand nobody actually resides in the district so it’s not really necessary to have an elected local government. Not having to deal with construction codes and zoning regulations subject to the whims of local politicians gives Disney free rein to deliver their product to visitors. On the other hand they can and almost certainly did cause all sorts of localized environmental disasters over the five-plus decades of building whatever they wanted in what had been pristine Florida swampland and contributed nothing to local school districts.
But Republicans never gave a fuck about any of those questions. They wanted to punish Disney in whatever way they could and they did. Now they’re walking it back while adding a token tax increase to state coffers. How’s that for principled Conservatism?