Some lawyers think that when Florida revoked Disney’s tax status for the company’s opposition to its “Don’t Say Gay” bill, the state violated its First Amendment rights. A government cannot retaliate against an entity for that entity’s exercise of free speech. (The Intercept, April 23, 2022, by Akela Lacy)
Law professor Eugene Volokh, Reason, April 22, 2022, is skeptical that the free speech charge has lasting power given that Florida is stripping Disney of a specially granted government power. It may be that Florida can legally revoke the special status since no other company enjoys it. Disney can still express its views on any political issue.
Michael C. Dorf in Dorf on Law, April 25, 2022, writes that after reading Volokh’s balanced and thoughtful post on Disney, he surmised that Volokh leaned toward the view that Florida’s action was constitutional. Dorf thought there was a strong free speech grounds but perhaps not easily established in court. “…where the speech of a…corporation with some special governmental authority is on a matter wholly unrelated to the exercise of the governmental authority that…corporation possesses, the interest in retaliating in response is no different from the (nonexistent) interest in retaliating against ordinary citizens for speaking out on matters of public concern,” Dorf wrote.
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One Comment
I understand the reasoning above but the timing and public comments from the governor makes the revocation of the special status a punishment of Disney’s criticism a violation of Disney’s right to exercise free speech. Had the specially granted government power been set to be removed under normal review or for another reason by another Florida legislature or governor, then that would be one thing, but this is plain and simple government abuse and a violation of the U.S. Constitution and should be treated as such. If said power is removed, the Florida taxpayers will be footing the bill and paying off the billion dollar debt by next summer. Florida voters should punish DeSantis and the legislative members who wrote and voted for this law at the election polls for that alone but also because as Republicans they have set precedent that has no respect for established corporate support and will be raising taxes to cover the debt or cutting funding elsewhere from desperate public-facing programs. Vote DeSantis and the legislative members behind this out of office, and ensure that they each remain in the private sector moving forward. Also, it would be nice to see many of them behind bars for violating constitutional law.
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