Florida Senate Passes Bill to End Disney’s Special Tax Jurisdiction

The Florida Senate passed on Wednesday legislation to end Disney’s special tax and governing jurisdiction.

The Senate passed S. 4-C, which is the legislation that would dissolve the Reedy Creek Improvement District, otherwise known as the special tax and governing jurisdiction for the Walt Disney World Resort.

The legislation passed with 23 votes in favor of the bill, and 16 against the bill.

The Florida legislature authorized the special district in 1967 to boost economic development and tourism; however, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and Florida Republicans proposed the legislation to eliminate the special district after Disney has continued to oppose DeSantis’s Parental Rights in Education Bill and also pushed to incorporate “many, many, many LGBTQIA characters in its stories.”

DeSantis said state lawmakers would consider the proposal this week to strip Disney’s special district. Florida state Rep. Randy Fine (R) followed quickly in suit to propose the legislation to eliminate this corporate welfare for Disney.

The Florida state House will likely take up the legislation on Thursday; the Florida House State Affairs Committee passed it favorably out of the committee on Tuesday.

Fine said in a statement on Tuesday, “Disney is a guest in Florida. Today, we remind them. @GovDeSantis just expanded the Special Session so I could file HB3C which eliminates Reedy Creek Improvement District, a 50 yr-old special statute that makes Disney to exempt from laws faced by regular Floridians.”

DeSantis’s move to eliminate the special tax jurisdiction follows after the megacorporation has started moving thousands of its employees to the more “business friendly” state of Florida.

“Notwithstanding s. 189.072(2), any independent special district established…prior to…November 5, 1968… is dissolved effective June 1, 2023,” the legislation reads.