Risk, Disney, and the History of the Reedy Creek Improvement District

With the vote to dissolve Disney's special charter, constitutional conservatives are issuing warnings of setting bad precedent and liberal journalists are decrying hypocrisy. What gives?

On Thursday, the Florida legislature voted to dissolve Disney’s special Reedy Creek Improvement District. This was a controversial action amid a political feud between the suits at Disney and Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis, controversial even among some national conservatives. After Florida passed the HB 1557 titled the Parents’ Rights in Education Act but falsely nicknamed the “Don’t Say Gay” by activists and the Media Industrial Complex, the Disney Corporation pushed back aggressively, by saying:

“Florida’s HB 1557, also known as the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill, should never have passed and should never have been signed into law,” the company said in a statement. “Our goal as a company is for this law to be repealed by the legislature or struck down in the courts, and we remain committed to supporting the national and state organizations working to achieve that.”

Disney has become aggressively political in the past several years, but exponentially so in the past several months. As a rule, Disney has preferred to remain as politically neutral as possible despite attempts to be drawn into numerous culture wars throughout the decades. In a 1994 Chicago Tribune article reporting the recent release of Disney’s The Lion King, activists raised concerns about the film’s “ghastly stereotypes.” The headline of the article, THE PEEVISHNESS OF THE POLITICALLY CORRECT, reflects the tone of the article that decries those who wish to make an racial or social issue out of every situation. On reflecting on this “viscous etiquette,” the article’s author writes:

But one could say the same thing of any group these days, including such absurd assemblages as klansmen in search of a hug or Huguenots who root for teams named after tropical fish. Sensitivity scam artists have made fortunes by packing people into rooms and inviting them to find reasons to distrust one another-skin color, family background, infirmity, etc. Some even exhort their charges to raise consciousness by taking offenders to court.

This viscous etiquette puts everybody on edge.

It goes on to address the issue from progressive groups at the time who had an issue with the nuclear family dynamic in the film:

The "Lion King" controversy also exposes the delicate issue of tradition. Some detractors have made it clear that they consider any neutral portrayal of an old-fashioned family as a declaration of war against new-age lifestyles. When they slam the cartoon, they seemingly demand an apology from studios that dare to defend marriage.

This Washington Post editorial from 1995 addresses the power that the Disney corporation was amassing at the time, under the guidance of Michael Eisner. The article addresses the Reedy Creek Improvement District in action only, but it still speaks to the power Disney had and has amassed over the years:

On the surface are its most famous stories and characters, which come from an enchanted land inhabited by happy families -- ducks, dogs, mice, humans -- growing and learning and enjoying their lives together. It's an optimistic place, a very American place where the opportunities are endless, the songs are infectious and the ending is always happy. This is the lovable Disney.

The other Disney is the canny corporate operator, the organization that knows how to work the angles, cut the deals, attract customers, market products and beat the competition. This is not a passing personality. Walt, his brother Roy and their corporate sharpies cut those famous deals in Florida that put the company in possession of a huge tract of land at bargain-basement prices. They arm-twisted the state of Florida until they got legal jurisdiction over that land, making the company not just the landowner, but also, in effect, the local government, the police chief, the fire marshal and every voter on Election Day.

In this interesting article from rethinkingschools.org from 2002, a teacher discusses his concerns with balancing his desire for personal activism against Disney with the pushback from the administrator at his school. He writes:

After I published the list of the guilty companies twice in the school’s weekly newsletter, the school’s director told me to stop. He said that by becoming a political activist, I was perilously close to muddying my role as a neutral educator.

What the director failed to tell me, but what I knew, were the real reasons I’d been reprimanded. The school was afraid to offend board members who might own stock in Disney; it wanted to be able to attract donations without appearing too political or too controversial. In other words, we had to remain neutral to protect investments in Disney and to secure funding for the school.

I realize there are complicated issues involved in trying to determine when and how it is appropriate for a teacher to guide student activism. For instance, teachers need to be sensitive to the importance of letting students discuss, analyze, and make up their own minds about social issues, rather than merely allowing them to regurgitate what they perceive to be the teacher’s views. And, as is true with any field trip or out-of-classroom activity, communication with parents and parental permission is essential.

But the complexities of the issue should not be used to hide the reality that teaching is never politically neutral. Everything educators do or don’t do can be classified as political. If it’s okay to promote progressive behavior by students (food drives, meals to the homeless), why shouldn’t we guide students into social activism against inhumane working conditions that help cause poverty and homelessness? And I doubt that a group of middle school students protesting against Disney is the revolutionary straw that will break the back of the empire.

These examples just show that as long as Disney has existed, it’s been a corporation that activists have attempted to bend and push to their will in an effort to affect change in whatever way the culture pendulum swung at the time; this has included progressive and conservative activism alike.

The past couple of years with Disney has been different. Like numerous other corporations, Disney has fallen pray to an overtaking of Woke Ideologues who are intent on turning Disney theme parks and movies into their own personal passion projects in the name of social activism. In 2010, animators created the YouTube channel Politizoid and in 2021 created a viral video titled “It’s a Woke World After All.” The creators had this to say about how Walt Disney would feel about the current status of Disney:

PolitiZoid @PolitiZoid

This was a personal episode since PZ’s work has been seen in Disney TV shows, films, video games, and theme parks around the world. Walt was a patriot. He would be appalled at the current state of his once great company. It’s time for the regular folks to stand up to corporatism.

Throughout the months of March and April 2022, the public watched as Disney bizarrely took an anti-parent stance against the Parents Rights in Education Bill, under the misguided stance for LGBTQ rights. It was astonishing; a company whose entire empire was built on entertainment for kids, expensive entertainment that their parents scrimp and save for months to provide, went all-in on the war against parents who simply wanted authority over their children in their taxpayer-funded Floridian public schools. It was almost like they had no real understanding of what they were doing to their company. In the supposed fight for LGBTQ rights, they were willing to completely destroy their entire business model and income stream by villainizing the people who’d built their business for decades. In a leaked call from Disney executives, they admit to their desire to push for more “queer programming” and discuss with pride the elimination of “boys and girls, ladies and gentleman” language from their parks.

In my opinion, it was the latter that really upset parents. It’s one thing to be socially aware about the rights of the LGBTQ community, but removing every single mention of “boy and girl” at a theme park where a family of four is spending $5,731 in 2021 on average for a vacation is too much for people to take. The entire Disney brand is built on princes and princesses, Mickey and Minnie. Going to Disney World includes purchasing $25 Disney ears with either a bow or no bow; it includes little girls getting princess makeovers and purchasing overpriced costumes to be like their favorite princess. These are all things that a typical family considers when considering their summer vacation destination, while watching executives proudly exclaim that the gender of their children will no longer be recognized if they go to a Disney theme park.

In the rush to affirm the feelings of the transgender community, a community that makes up less than 3% of the entire US population, Disney was/is willing to completely disregard the feelings of the other 97%, including those who work for the company who do not want Disney to be this politically involved. In a petition started by employees in March 2022, they describe the atmosphere inside the Disney company and ask for the company to maintain its’ political neutrality. It says “over the last few years, one group of cast members has become invisible within the company. The Walt Disney Company has come to be an increasingly uncomfortable place to work for those of us whose political and religious views are not explicitly progressive. We watch quietly as our beliefs come under attack from our own employer, and we frequently see those who share our opinions condemned as villains by our own leadership.” When reporting on the backlash by the employees to the Parents Rights bill in Florida, the Media Industrial Complex reported very little (if at all) about the pushback from the employees on the other side of the political debate. They call themselves “invisible” in the petition because essentially they are; while the progressive employees stage walk-outs to full write-ups in the New York Times and publicly bully senior leadership into cowering to their demands, this invisible group quietly and respectfully signs petitions, writing out impassioned pleas that include describing their love of the company and what makes the company special in the eyes of the public. Very few members of the public even realize this group of employees exist because the loud progressives that the New York Times article calls “a socially conscious generation or workers” were simply louder and more pushy. (An article for a different time would be examining how these two groups of employees are portrayed in the media and how one group, while labeled “socially conscious,” has very little social conscientiousness or awareness of the negative impacts their corporate activism has on their companies and society as a while, but I digress.)

With all that said, at the end of the day, these are all decisions Disney is making for their own company. Their employees and customers will determine how they feel about those decisions by either choosing to find another job or choosing to find another vacation destination to spend their hard-earned money, if they don’t agree with the direction the company is going. If Disney wants to run Disney into the ground, destroying its’ legacy in the process, that’s Disney’s choice. Alternatively, what Disney has decided to do with the state of Florida is impose themselves in legislation that isn’t their business. They’ve not only imposed themselves, they’ve become adversaries of the state government, and therefore, of the voters who put those elected officials in power.

According to the NYT, “For weeks, Disney lobbyists in Florida had been pressing to soften the legislation.” Understand that Disney lobbies for issues all the time, issues that are related to the business of being Disney. Things like trademark protection extension are perfectly acceptable because it’s their business and their right to go to their government and petition it for what it wants. However, Disney has no business meddling in the business of public education. If the CEOs would like to individually petition their local school boards or elected officials, that’s their right. In the past two years, companies have become more entrenched into legislation and political activism that truly has nothing to do with their business dealings and the public is fed up with it, as are the politicians who are constantly bullied by corporations but were not elected by corporations. Disney wasn’t the only company who spoke out against the bill; in fact, 244 companies (that also have nothing to do with the educational matters between children, parents and schools in the state of Florida) signed a petition titled the Business Statement on Anti-LGBTQ State Legislation. These companies include Marriott, American Airlines and AirBnb. Disney did not sign the letter, yet they are the only one who became marred in public controversy. Why? Because what people overlook in this situation is that part of the reason Disney is in the mess it’s in with Florida is because activists with nefarious intentions disguised as “socially consciousness” went to war with Disney too, and Disney decided to participate in it. Well Funded Activist Groups require full adherence to their cause - or else. To them, Disney’s fatal flaw was not signing that letter and they were able to bully Disney CEO Bob Chapek into submission. As the Wall Street Journal aptly states in the linked article, “Its alienating push into Florida politics is a warning for other CEOs.”

In this situation, Disney not only alienated their own customer base, they also became adversaries of the state government with their activist shenanigans, taking the Florida legislature to task for passing the Parents Rights in Education Bill. They participated in propaganda by colluding with the media continuing to falsely refer to the bill as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, smearing it in the process. They took up preverbal arms against legislators on behalf of a bill which they refused to honestly discuss in the public, a bill that had zero to do with their business dealings. What makes their political aggression toward the state government even more confounding is that Disney itself operates in Florida under its’ own governmental system of municipal powers given to the company in 1967 that included a special copyright provision protecting the images of characters from infringement.

The Reedy Creek Improvement District (RCID)

To understand the Reedy Creek Improvement District, I went back into newspapers.com to find Floridian reporting on it at the time it was passed in 1967.

Walt Disney’s brother Roy spearheaded the push for creating the municipalities surrounding the Reedy Creek Drainage District, a total of 27,000 acres at the time. The legislation Roy demanded included governing powers of cities that would be established to house Disney World’s facilities and surrounding residences for employees, as well as state protection of its’ trade names. To develop Disney World in Florida would take a tremendous investment of resources, as most of it was swamp land; plus, to build the buildings as Walt Disney had envisioned, it needed to be free from local building codes. The RCID allows Disney to not only maintain their own parks from a municipality perspective (first responders, infrastructure) but it allows them to build Disney buildings as they wish, granting themselves permission to build construction projects, etc. Through the RCID, Disney is able to levy its’ own taxes and even has the authority to build a nuclear power plant, if it chooses. The RCID was established by charter in 1967; click here for a timeline of events within the RCID since its’ establishment. According to their website, RCID oversees the cities of Bay Lake and Lake Buena Vista and in 2022 operated with a revenue of $5.2 million, with an assessed value of $2.2 billion. The RCID has a board that consists of 5 members that are appointed by Disney itself.

While this bill is fresh on our minds in 2022, it’s hardly the first time the RCID has been at the center of controversy. In 1987, the South Florida Sun Sentinel wrote an article titled For Disney, Tax District is the Real Magic Kingdom.

“Tax districts weren't new in 1967 -- the Legislature has created specialized district governments for everything from sewage treatment to mosquito control. But never before -- or since -- had one district been endowed with the many governmental powers given Reedy Creek.”

In the 90’s the Washington Post wrote an article titled Disney’s Peculiar Notion of Democracy when Disney was considering expanding another park into Virginia. It warned:

“Disney World in Florida has ersatz government to accompany its equally artificial Adventureland, Frontierland and Fantasyland. The Civil War, Crossroads USA, State Fair, Family Farm and other features planned for Disney's America in Virginia won't be any more authentic. But local and state residents ought to vigilantly guard against another venture in simulated democracy.”

In the 2000’s, Prospect.org wrote an article titled Hidden Kingdom: Disney's Political Blueprint

“Walt Disney dubbed one of Disney World's attractions the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow (EPCOT), but the name might better describe Disney's design for private government. Today, variations on the same blueprint abound not only in entertainment complexes but also in shopping malls and urban development districts where special tax arrangements and exemptions are increasingly popular means for extricating property from government oversight. In suburbs across the country, perhaps one-third of new developments are gated, with security, utilities, and other traditionally public services routinely delegated to private authorities.

For Disney, this approach clearly has worked. Total control has enabled Disney to isolate its Magic Kingdom from outside social, political, and intellectual currents.”

While much has been written and discussed about Disney’s special governance situation, it seems that while the public and government in Florida might be uncomfortable with the arrangement, they could tolerate it, because Disney is a very special brand that brings something very special to the table. As long as Disney, the state government, and citizens of Florida had a mutually beneficial and respectful relationship, everyone was willing to allow the arrangement to continue. Keep in mind, this charter, as with any other charter throughout the country, can be giveth and also be taketh away, based on the discretion of the governing body that oversees it. Charter schools are a great example of this; there is a balance that must exist between the school board and the governing body who has issued the charter. When the school is no longer functioning according to the charter’s intended purpose, it can be revoked. I suppose one could consider this political retribution, or one could consider this the terms of the agreement both parties signed up for. The beneficiaries of a charter understand that they must play very fair and adhere to the rules of the charter because they get revoked all over the country, all the time.

Here’s the different in Disney’s case. It appears that up until now, Disney understood this amicable and delicate balance. It knew how to “play the game,” so to speak, because it publicly appeared to act as though it was aware that its’ special privileges could be revoked at any time. In a matter of weeks, Disney forgot about its’ own role under this charter and began acting in ways that were adversarial not only to the state, but to itself and against its’ own financial best interest.

Disney doesn’t exist in the 1960s any longer, where it’s the only entertainment and tourism game in Florida. Governor DeSantis, to his credit, was the biggest champion for the Florida tourism industry during the pandemic. He knows where the state’s bread is buttered. However, Floridian tourism is not limited to Disney as it was in 1967, when this charter was passed in a matter of only three weeks. Today, next door to Disney is Orlando’s Universal Studios that houses the Wizarding World of Harry Potter; there’s the massive cruise industry, as well as the summer beach industry, all of which have boomed in the past two years, thanks to DeSantis’ aggressive and willful refusal to subject its’ citizens to mask/vaccine mandates and lockdowns. California did completely the opposite. While Disney World was closed for four months, Disneyland in Anaheim was closed for over a year. These other entertainment venues have never been given their own districts in the manner Disney has. In reporting by USA Today, “House sponsor Rep. Randy Fine, R-Brevard, said the special district designation provides an unfair competitive advantage over other tourist attractions. ‘We provide Disney things that we do not provide to their competitors. And that's fundamentally unfair,’ said Fine. ‘Universal is building a third theme park. We're not going to create the Woody Woodpecker Improvement District. They have to compete with one hand tied behind their backs,’ said Fine.” This is a fair point and one that should be taken into consideration in 2022, even if it wasn’t the case in 1967.

Gov DeSantis’ stubborn refusal to be bullied by anyone in these past two years has spilled over into this Disney controversy. Many have hailed his defiance as remarkable leadership. He holds the ability to see past the next few days or weeks to make decisions that are best, long-term. It’s a risky road to walk, that’s for sure, and it’s not for the faint of heart. He’s made decisions that he hoped would pay off, but those payoffs have sometimes taken time to come to fruition. Waiting on payoffs is not easy to traverse in the current media environment we exist in. His opponents have given him the moniker Death Santis and for the last two years, have subjected his reputation to repeated personal assaults and attacks by the Legacy Media. His tolerance to risk-taking is admirable in many ways, but there are times even his supporters have their moments of doubt about his decision making. DeSantis’ has his sites set on Disney, but to be fair, Disney had their sites set on him, first. Constitutional absolutists argue that dissolving the charter is an example of political retaliation for dissenting political views and that it is a violation of the First Amendment. Here is the bill that was introduced Tuesday and approved Thursday:

The bill in question, SB 4-C, is worded as follows:

A bill to be entitled: An act relating to independent special districts; amending s. 189.0311, F.S.; dissolving certain independent special districts; authorizing the reestablishment of certain independent special districts; providing an effective date. Be It Enacted by the Legislature of the State of Florida:

Section 1. Section 189.0311, Florida Statutes, is amended to read: 189.0311 Independent special districts; charter requirements.— (1) Notwithstanding any general law, special act, or ordinance of a local government to the contrary, any independent special district charter enacted after September 30, 1989, shall contain the information required by s. 189.031(3). Recognizing 18 that the exclusive charter for a community development district is the statutory charter contained in ss. 190.006-190.041, community development districts established after July 1, 1980, pursuant to the provisions of chapter 190 shall be deemed in compliance with this requirement. (2) Notwithstanding s. 189.072(2), any independent special district established by a special act prior to the date of ratification of the Florida Constitution on November 5, 1968, and which was not reestablished, re-ratified, or otherwise reconstituted by a special act or general law after November 5, 28 1968, is dissolved effective June 1, 2023. An independent special district affected by this subsection may be reestablished on or after June 1, 2023, pursuant to the requirements and limitations of this chapter. Section 2.

This act shall take effect July 1, 2022.

Disney has until June 1, 2023 to try and reestablish a newly designed independent special district; until then, things will remain as is.

Clearly, DeSantis is proving a point and calling Disney out on its’ political activism. There’s no mistake this was done for that reason. However, it can’t be denied that Disney stoked this fire for no other reason than adherence to the cause of social justice activism and grandstanding for a bill for which it had . DeSantis didn’t punish Disney simply for being woke; he held them accountable to breaking the charter relationship that required a mutual adherence and partnership. This charter has always been conditional, it was never a constitutional, unconditional right. Disney broke the conditions when it took up the state of Florida as its’ enemy. Removing any ideological viewpoint from the discussion, this was the preverbal straw that broke the camel’s back.

In the charter, page 18, last page of section 2, it states: In the event of a conflict between the provisions of this Act and the provisions of any other law, now existing or hereafter b, the provisions of this Act shall control to the extent of any such conflict unless such enactment shall specifically repeal or amend the provisions of this Act.

Perhaps a little fear of corporate overreach into legislation is warranted in the state the country is in right now. Between Disney, the MLB in 2020, and a host of other situations in the past two years, perhaps we need a reset on the power these corporations have taken for themselves to interfere with the political process that occurs between citizens and their local governments. As a conservative myself, the introduction and passage of the dissolution of this charter made me uneasy in the way all government intervention makes me feel uneasy. But I have to remember that Disney made its’ decisions, too, this was not the government coming after a blameless entity. I also have trouble arguing that it should receive a very special and unique privilege in perpetuity, regardless of its actions, simply using the first amendment as an excuse. The first amendment wasn’t designed to be used in that way, to benefit corporations that are already benefitting having been given their own government to control their own companies. Perhaps Disney has been so far removed from the bureaucracy the rest of us live in, it has forgotten how to play nice with others and it needs to remember how to do that again.

Though DeSantis’ ultimate goal with this is unknown, it could be argued that by allowing a year to pass in the bill and giving an option for renegotiation of the charter’s terms, he’s hoping that Disney will take a step back and find their balance with the state again. DeSantis is not only risking lawsuits as a result of this bill, but also Disney abandoning the park altogether and moving to another state, though this would not be likely. When the original charter was approved, Disney tied itself to Florida in a very permanent way. The company has spend untold amounts of money over the last 50 years creating an innovative infrastructure and world in Florida that would be hard to abandon and too costly to start again, which is another reason their adversarial attitude toward the state legislator makes little sense. Why make an enemy of the state when it’s nearly impossible for you to leave?

Hopefully, Disney comes to its’ senses and is able to get back to its’ roots, which is making magical entertainment based on the innocence of childhood. At the very least, I hope Disney finds civil boundaries again when the rest of the society and has learned that injecting itself into matters that aren’t their business has consequences.