The Contractual Impossibility of Unwinding Disney’s Reedy Creek | Hacker News Reader

The Contractual Impossibility of Unwinding Disney’s Reedy Creek

news.bloombergtax.com

79 pointsIsamu197 comments

I don’t think the elimination of the Reedy Creek district is meant to ever actually occur. The point is twofold. To send a message that dissent from the business community will not be tolerated. And, to keep stoking the fires of the culture wars. When they get their people denouncing the opposition as “groomers”, they are achieving their objective.

I suspect there's a way to eliminate Reedy Creek district.

I don't think it's the law stopping the dissolution of the district -- it's that no one important in the state seriously wants to do that. Who does it benefit?

There is: the state of Florida can pay off the debt. All at once. That is the only legal way to do it without endangering all of Florida's other debt (bonds, etc.).

The local community can’t afford to assume the districts responsibility even if the bond debt is assumed by the state.

Wouldn't the local community collect a lot more taxes if the district didn't exist? As I understand it (admittedly not very well), right now Disney is effectively "paying taxes" to itself.

That's actually covered in the article. "Mills" is the term of art for the amount levied in property taxes. Reedy Creek has the ability to tax at 30mills and currently taxes at 13.67 (1/3 of which goes to paying the debt) the counties are limited to only taxing at a rate up to 10 mills (and are currently at about ~7 mills (Osceola) and ~5 (Orange) so there's a 3.67 shortfall they can't make up and another 3-5 which they currently don't.

The added revenue to the counties would be far short of the amount they'd need to provide the current services and service the debt.

Osceola Millage Rates https://www.property-appraiser.org/final-millage-rates/

Orange Millage Rates https://ocpaweb.ocpafl.org/faqcontent/Taxroll_Info#A404411

> currently taxes at 13.67 (1/3 of which goes to paying the debt)

So they'd need about 9 mills (2/3rds of 13.67) to pay expenses without the debt? It's likely that they could make up the shortfall by reducing some services. Any services that the local community didn't want to pay for and the Disney company still wanted, Disney could pay for itself.

I also wonder if the the district is fairly valuing the land. How much would a hotel be willing to pay for an acre near the park, and is that the valuation the district uses?

Each time I learn more about it, this arrangement seems crazier. It was strange enough that private companies are allowed to run their own local governments in Florida. Now it turns out they're also allowed to issue tax advantaged municipal debt, and transfer that debt to taxpayers if this sweet deal ever ends.

It's true that Reedy Creek is being singled out because Disney has fallen out of favor, but I'm still hoping there is some flaw in this arrangement that leads to the end of all special districts now that people are paying attention.

Disney built a world class destination in the middle of, what is basically, a swamp. They built all the necessary infrastructure and paid for it by taxing themselves. In a lot of ways it put Orlando on the map and provided a huge boost to the surrounding economy.

I'm not sure who was getting screwed there? It honestly seems like it was a win/win situation.

> I'm not sure who was getting screwed there?

Here's one: normally corporate bond payments are federally taxable, but municipal bonds aren't. Everyone in the country is missing out on taxes on payments on that 2 billion dollar debt.

Yeah but that’s a chicken and egg problem. Those bonds wouldn’t exist without the current exemption.

You and I talked about this the other day, and I walked away from this article further convinced that improvement districts are an abomination to the concept of democracy and must be ended. To these ends I think it would be smart for some politician to say "I don't think this bill goes far enough" and propose legislation to dissolve every improvement district.

That's what people said about Brexit..but here we are

>The point is twofold. To send a message that dissent from the business community will not be tolerated. And, to keep stoking the fires of the culture wars.

I think the purpose was a lot more narrow: to position Ron DeSantis for the 2024 Republican Presidential primaries. Relatively small numbers of Republicans vote in the primaries, and they tend to be the angrier, more extreme wing. Donald Trump was nominated in 2016 despite a majority of Republican primary voters actually voting for other candidates. Once he was nominated, however, most Republicans fell into step and supported him.

> Relatively small numbers of Republicans vote in the primaries, and they tend to be the angrier, more extreme wing. Donald Trump was nominated in 2016 despite a majority of Republican primary voters actually voting for other candidates.

That strategy doesn't work as well if you get ranked choice voting or anything other than first-past-the-post.

https://reason.com/2022/04/28/florida-tennessee-ban-ranked-c...

...oh

Few people remember that Trump likely won the nomination due to "cross-over" voters in states with open primaries. There was an organized effort by Democrats to cross-vote for him as the Republican candidate under the belief that he couldn't possibly defeat Hillary Clinton in the actual election.

I don't know if there is a way to determine whether or not that effort actually succeeded, but it did exist and was spoken about with great pride until Trump became the President.

>And, to keep stoking the fires of the culture wars.

It's slimy and dishonest to pretend that only republicans are fighting a culture war when the bulk of the progressive platform is explicitly about changing US culture. It's like calling Ukraine the aggressor for defending against the Russian invasion.

Cultures change constantly. They’re never in a sort of stasis. Culture is just the expressions of a group of humans, how they think, and how they interact.

One could argue that rolling back abortion access (which has existed for decades and is part of US culture) is conservatives in America explicitly changing US culture. Same with bills like the one in Florida that disallow teachers from discussing human gender or human romantic relationships.

Everyone is generally trying to affect the direction of the culture of the US at the political level at all times. It’s not a right va left thing it’s a humans exist thing.

>Cultures change constantly. They’re never in a sort of stasis. Culture is just the expressions of a group of humans, how they think, and how they interact.

That doesn't obligate a people to quietly accept a culture imposed onto them by out of touch urbanites/intellectuals/ivory tower elites.

>Same with bills like the one in Florida that disallow teachers from discussing human gender or human romantic relationships.

Human gender and normalcy of romantic relationships are culturally defined. This bill isn't about forbidding discussion of genders, its about resisting the imposition of progressive culture onto the children of moderate/conservative parents. This isn't about bigotry, this is a genuine concern that normalizing fundamentally abnormal behaviors can do more harm than good to individuals and society.

The issue is not whether Republicans are the only ones fighting a culture war.

It's about whether the Republicans are only fighting a culture war.

What are their policies on healthcare? Infrastructure investment and repair? Climate change? Transportation policy? Childhood poverty? Topsoil depletion in the midwest? Extreme severe drought in the southwest? etc. etc.

Why do they appear to spend so much time talking about things in the "culture war" realm and so little time advancing policy agendas about things that really matter (not that are no "culture war" issues that matter).

Progressives are quite clear about the metrics by which they consider one state of a society to be better than another. More equality of opportunity. Less income/wealth inequality. A more even distribution of GDP between labor and capital. Reduced discrimination against protected classes. Improved health outcomes. Equal treatment under the law. Above all, the type of society you would choose to live in if you could not control who your parents were or where you would be born.

It is far from clear what the conservative/Republican equivalent of this is.

> It is far from clear what the conservative/Republican equivalent of this is.

Amount of brown people in their voters neighborhood

This doesn't work in Florida.

I'm not sure policies matter much in the end. If I went into a coma before election night 2016 and woke up today, how would I tell we just had four years of a hard-right authoritarian government and we are now about a year and three months into a moderate center-left government?

I have to be honest it's not a night-and-day difference.

Nobody could tell; that's why we have cloth masks to differentiate ourselves.

About a year after Trump's election, I found myself thinking along similar lines. I mean, his administration made very little difference in my life, or the lives of anyone I know. Yes, I could be empathetic towards people whose lives I mostly just read about. But realistically, I had no actual evidence of any impact.

Then I met up with a very old friend of mine. Successful SV VC guy. Incredibly smart. Incredibly human. Probably reads Hacker News (actually, scratch that). Happens to be of Indian ancestry, though he grew up in Davis, CA. Very wealthy thanks to a few good choices made after he dropped out of his PhD program. So yeah, maybe he didn't have my middle class white anglo privilege going on, but if there's a ladder, I had always assumed he was only 1 or 2 rungs below me, at worst.

As it turns out, no. Trump's election had made him adopt a policy of no longer engaging in any business travel to anywhere in the USA except major metropolitan areas. Was it paranoid? I don't feel equipped to comment. But that was the verdict of a guy that I respect enormously for his intelligence and his decision making processes. He felt too unsafe in Trump's America to visit mid-size towns in Iowa.

So, when you say:

> I have to be honest it's not a night-and-day difference.

I'd advise checking in with some brown people you know (or don't know). Some immigrants not yet moved into citizenship. Someone in any group that Trump verbally attacked. Because I felt the same way until my friend gently but forcefully told me that I had no idea what the fuck I was talking about if I was trying to generalize from my own experience.

>Trump's election had made him adopt a policy of no longer engaging in any business travel to anywhere in the USA except major metropolitan areas

So not because of any negative experience with these areas, just because of some bigoted stereotype? Sounds like the parent post was right, nothing in daily life really changed, except perhaps the perception of some increased danger. Perhaps brought on by the way that Trump was reported on in the media?

The fact that people feel something does not imply that it exists. Humans are notoriously unreliable witnesses.

> The fact that people feel something does not imply that it exists.

I absolutely agree.

Nevertheless, to hear that an intelligent, savvy, world-travelling person could now feel unsafe in many parts of the USA was, to me, indicative of a type of change that is as real as them actually being unsafe. Which is to say: I don't know if they were actually in any more danger than they would have been before, but they now perceived American society as if they were. That didn't happen because they ate the wrong thing for breakfast.

The fact that the "overton window" of the visible culture seemed to have move enough after Trump's election that this person now felt unsafe, regardless of whether there was an actual change in their safety, seems really notable to me, and no doubt even more notable to the people who live with this shift in perception.

What actually made midsize towns in Iowa unsafe to visit for persons of Indian descent in Trump's America? Did the Iowans suddenly get more racist? Was Dubuque declared a "sundown town"? Have the Iowans calmed down now that we live in Biden's America?

I think my friend's explanation was that he felt that people who might potentially feel inclined to verbally or physically harass him now felt less inhibited after Trump's election. That is to say, there was no actual shift in attitude but a shift in the likelihood of public behavior based on those attitudes. I have not checked in with him since the last election, but based on conversations we've had in the past, I would guess he does not imagine that Biden's election has changed things much. The genie escaped from the bottle; putting it back is much harder.

So essentially the people in mid-size towns in Iowa were and are mostly racist (and not "implicit bias" racist but "shouting racial slurs and engaging in physical aggression" racist) but the national attitude during 2008-16 was holding them back from verbally and physically harassing people of color as they wanted to do, because they knew Obama would crack down on them like a ton of bricks.

After Election Day 2016 the formerly mild-mannered Iowans (a state so racist that America's first Black president won a majority of votes there in 2008 and 2012) decided to drop all pretense of being nice to people of color.

I'm sorry but it sounds frankly ridiculous.

That feels like a more or less willful misreading.

Let's suppose that my friend crosses paths with 100 Iowans during a business trip there. Let's suppose that 1% of Iowans are racist or bigoted enough to at the very least yell some abuse at this particular clearly non-caucasian individual. Before Trump's primary campaign and electoral win, social pressure kept the 1 person my friend may have encountered from acting on that impulse, but afterwards, that person felt much freer to just speak their mind (or worse).

Such an analysis says nothing about Iowans in general as people. It says that it's easy to be worried that the general attitude had shifted enough in Iowa (but not, say, in NYC or Chicago) that the tiny percentage of people who might act on their racist/bigoted impulses are now more likely to do so, changing my friend's risk exposure by visiting.

It's not for you or me to judge whether that's sufficient reason to avoid Iowa now. That's an individual decision to be made, and I do not sit in judgement of those who decide one way or another.

But you're also missing the deeper aspect of the point I'm trying to make. You don't have to believe me, but I'm telling you that my friend is a hyper-rational, highly intelligent, well informed individual. The fact that such a person could move from "I have never worried about being brown when moving around the USA" to "I will not visit anywhere outside of large metropolitan areas" - that's the change. You are free to argue that it is is irrational, or even "ridiculous" as you put it, but the point is that the state of American society pre-Trump left this individual feeling safe, and the same state post-Trump left them feeling anxious. If they were a person prone to irrational, emotive decisions or generally over-reacted to anything, then I would be inclined to dismiss the change in their sense of their own safety. If they had always worried about this aspect of life in the USA, I would be inclined to dismiss the change. But they are not and they did not, and so I take this change quite seriously.

It’s slimy and dishonest to pretend that I said something that I did not say.

Your use of “dissent” is an interesting way to frame a major corporation trying to exert pressure to oppose a Florida bill the majority of people in Florida support.

Is this a change from Republican orthodoxy, where big corporations get whatever they ask for regardless of public opinion. Yes.

> to oppose a Florida bill the majority of people in Florida support.

Please provide a source for this claim.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FN_ArK9VEAEnDva?format=jpg&name=...

The question is: "To what extent do you support or oppose the following items in the bill? Banning the teaching of sexual orientation and gender identity from kindergarten through third grade?" Respondents supported it 50-34.

Don’t confuse support for one provision to mean support for the entire bill.

If you scroll down in the same poll a few questions you will see:

“To what extent do you support or oppose the following items in the bill? Allowing parents to sue school districts over alleged violations of sexual orientation and gender identity discussions in schools”

Support 41% Oppose 43%

https://www.politico.com/f/?id=0000017f-9034-d137-abff-f0f41...

I think it would have been more enlightening if they'd separated out the question, to see how many people would be okay with sexual orientation being taught, but not gender identity. Or vice versa.

They're two very different, and somewhat conflicting, concepts. For example, is homosexuality an attraction between people of the same sex, or the same gender identity? This is a contentious issue even amongst adults, never mind teaching it to children.

It’s an entirely appropriate framing.

Everything you say is likely correct, but for full context, these actions are a response to an initial political action that most likely can also be described in identical terms. From a less polarized position, this is fire fighting fire.

This is a pretty big escalation. There are definitely examples of both sides being the aggressor in the broader "culture wars", but IMO the absurdity of this particular issue is pretty much entirely on the right.

I'm not sure how to resolve the absurdity level between the left's initial action and the right's reaction. They both seem equally absurd to me. But maybe that's where subjectivity comes in.

Disney’s political actions were entirely within their rights. The state taking adverse action against them for exercising those rights should not be tolerated in a liberal society.

>To send a message that dissent from the business community will not be tolerated.

And as a consequence it means less business will ever come to Florida which is a disaster for them. It also means any existing businesses in Florida are likely to move more of their new work outside of the state. It's really a bad decision on DeSantis' part and I don't think he cares obviously but his party does.

It’s been said that reality has a well-known liberal bias[^0]. The palpable fear and petulance on display in Florida seems to reinforce that statement. Stunts like this underscore the fact that the US consistently fails with people like DeSantis in office because their gut gets in the way of what is right [^1]. And we all know the problem with politics is the left admitting it’s not always right.

[^0]: https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4698442/user-clip-reality-lib...

[^1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._economic_performance_un...

But naming the opposition "white supremacist", "far right", and "racists" is perfectly accurate and OK.

When people espouse positions that are friendly toward white supremacist ideology, and adopt policies that are demonstrably racist, I think it's absolutely reasonable to call them white supremacists and racists. When people hold positions that are quite clearly far down the right side of our traditional political spectrum, I think it's correct to call them far right.

It's not an ad hominem attack or partisan name-calling to say someone is <insert negative description here> if they actually, factually fit that description.

It would be a shame if current legislators could restrict future legislators by adding infinite year bonds to all new laws with promises the law will never change as long as that bond exists.

If this principal of preserving bond contracts prohibits legistivative action or could even have a chilling effect on it, perhaps the real issue is that government debt generally is a risk to our democracy. Perhaps congresses should not be allowed to engage in debt terms that exceed the term limit of that congress. (2 years or so).

(I don't want to make any claim with regard to Florida law, nor the politics behind what's happening in Florida.)

> It would be a shame if current legislators could restrict future legislators by adding infinite year bonds to all new laws with promises the law will never change as long as that bond exists.

Isn't it some core legal principle that legislature can't do that, and always has the power to reverse itself?

This article feels like it's built on a priority inversion, like debt terms are really the supreme law of the land, which wouldn't surprise me from something deeply embedded in financial market thinking as "Bloomberg Tax" probably is.

I may have missed the nuance in the article, but in Florida it seems they found a way to do that.

> Isn't it some core legal principle that legislature can't do that, and always has the power to reverse itself?

The problem with having supreme power to break any contract without consequences is that nobody will make contracts with you any more. For this reason, many states have (e.g.) clauses in their constitutions saying they won't.

Of course, the legislature usually has the power to amend the constitution.

I'm moderately sure that the UK government has that power; we have no equivalent of the contract clause here. People still make contracts with the UK government.

Correct - I was trying to be succinct.

The idea of "sovereign debt credit ratings" is of course how it's done internationally - a nation may be unable to actually render itself unable to default, but if it's got a 350-year history of not defaulting, that can serve as a substitute.

But many organisations need loans before they've established a 350-year history, and a constitutional clause can give investors greater confidence.

Yes. One of the fundamental principles of British democracy is that no parliament may bind its successors; any law they make can be overturned by a future parliament. Generally the main consequence of this is that companies aren't willing to sign contracts that are likely to be overturned by their successors; as a general principle the government will pay for work already done, but penalty clauses designed to force the next government to keep the scheme going (which I think Labour tried with ID cards) don't fare so well.

This is kind of necessary in a functioning democracy (as opposed to a corpocracy with democratic trappings); if any government can just give sweetheart deals transferring power to corporations that voters can't do anything about by exercising their vote, in what sense are the voters really in charge at all?

Yes, that's right, I think. In the UK we have parliamentary sovereignty. As I understand it, no law and no court can stop Parliament from doing what it wants to do because every UK law can be amended by Parliament and every court merely applies those laws. (Courts may also apply international laws in some cases but the UK laws take priority and could override any foreign law.)

The UK's Constitution is utterly terrible. In many places if you tried to implement something similar it would probably self-destruct very quickly. The UK manages to keep going with it (not brilliantly, but society hasn't completely collapsed yet) only because there is a strong democratic culture. That's my theory, anyway.

At least one major ratings agency has put out a warning to Florida: https://www.fitchratings.com/research/us-public-finance/flor...

I believe it is implied that the state could buy all those bonds to eliminate the problem. And that it would cost a bit too much to be worth it.

> Perhaps congresses should not be allowed to engage in debt terms that exceed the term limit of that congress. (2 years or so).

That would completely flatten any investment into infrastructure, these projects need extremely long bond terms simply because otherwise repayment would be astronomical.

This seems like it would seriously hamper the ability of areas to give sweetheart deals to companies to attract investment. I'd actually love this as someone who'd prefer that states compete on things like robust investments in their workforce (education, healthcare, etc) and infrastructure, rather than race-to-the-bottom tax incentives...

Race to the bottom tax incentives are the first wrung on the ladder to bootstrapping a nice place with robust investments. Provided the benefits aren't squandered.

Why not impose a sensible limit?

Financing infrastructure that lasts decades over decades isn't pernicious.

I mean they could just keep it in existence forever by issuing new debt, apparently.

Everyone is excited about Disney 'beating' the Florida government but: is having some weird corporate carve-out of US territory that essentially must legally exist forever really something good?

In this case, congress is not limited. There is a clear way out, the state buys out the bond holders and eliminates the debt. They just can’t dissolve the district without addressing the debt. The cost to do this is said to be 1B. And given the many more billions Disney has poured into the infrastructure and the fact it will continue to use the municipal utilities providing a cash stream, it doesn’t seem unrealistic or unfair to me. (Not to mention the massive tourism benefit this deal has provided to the state)

The issue seems to be that there is not enough political will to use 1B of Florida’s budget to make this happen, not that there is any prohibition on them doing so.

They can back out, just at a high financial cost. This is no different to any other contractual obligation that lasts longer than the term limit.

Any new or existing municipality can take over those bonds. They do it all the time. And as a fallback the state could take those on and refinance them and pay then off. It's really not difficult, but the author makes it seem to be.

As for the millage rate, if Reedy Creek is higher than the state maximum, I'm curious for what valuation Disney appraises its own property, since the millage rate is only part of the story.

Except one of the bonds cannot be redeemed early, and based on the taxation rate authorized to Reedy Creek means the underlying terms of the bonds have been changed. The Florida state constitution apparently has strict limits on the state governments ability to interfere with contracts, and according to the article, that is also strongly held in previous Supreme Court cases.

This article is written by an attorney based in Florida. I think it’s probably reasonable to defer to their expertise, in this case. after all, they are an attorney with experience in the state - are you?

The state _could_ attempt to negotiate with bondholders to repurchase the bonds - probably at a significant premium, however. Of course, if one of the bondholders refuses to sell, there wouldn't be much they can do... (I wonder if Disney holds any of those bonds for this very reason?)

> if one of the bondholders refuses to sell

eminent domain has entered the chat

> I'm curious for what valuation Disney appraises its own property

It doesn't seem that Disney is responsible for property appraisals. See, for example, this news story [1] about them suing Orange County to get their assessments lowered.

[1]: https://floridapolitics.com/archives/440815-what-is-disney-w...

Sure another municipality “could” take over the bonds. They just can’t afford them.

I saw a better article in my local newspaper[0]. According to that article, Disney already pays property taxes to both Orange and Osceola county for their properties inside the respective counties. Essentially, they are double taxed. This is not unusual because this is how it works if you live in an incorporated city in Florida. You pay taxes to both the city and the county. Disney just runs their own little city.

The problem is that the legislator is basically unincorporating the city that Disney runs. This is a huge problem for the counties' taxpayers. They will have to absorb the budget of this now unincorporated city as well as the $1 billion debt.

[0] https://www.floridatoday.com/story/money/business/2022/04/23...

From what I read, if the district is dissolved, the counties would need to assume the bonds. But, currently, the district is taxing the property to pay for the bonds at a rate that's much higher than is allowed for the counties to levy. If the counties assume the bonds, they'd need to increase taxes across the board to pay for them.

If it's really the policy of the Florida government to retaliate against Disney by relieving them of their debt service; how does that dissuade Disney? How do the citizens of the two counties feel? Is it appropriate for governments to retaliate against companies for opposition or support of a law?

Of all the creatures on this earth to be feared, I'd put Disney lawyers at the top of the list. There's no way this will end well for Florida.

While I appreciate a clear explanation of the legal situation surrounding the Reedy Creek bonds, I am still pretty amazed that the fact of a Governor of a state saying explicitly "we are going to punish a corporation for speaking out about our legislation" has not generated more pushback.

I don't think that corporations are people, nor do they deserve the full protection of the first amendment (particularly those incorporated as for-profit). Nevertheless, in the current legal climate, this just seems blatantly, clearly, obviously unconstitutional and yet there's been nary a peep about that aspect of it.

Even here on hackernews you can see people fiercely defending DeSantis' action as "not retribution", claiming that it's somehow beneficial for Florida to dissolve the district.

We're living in strange times. Ideas like like civility and good faith debates have all but disappeared and each side is blaming the other for the state of politics today and continue to use that as an excuse for their own toxic behavior. It's a straight race to the bottom.

I think that there is a feeling that the other side is attempting to move policy forward that is not supported by a majority of constituents but is rather leveraging an artificial amplification on media (social and otherwise) to make it appear otherwise and, as such, is a blatant, clear, and obvious subversion of process. I think that that feeling, whether right or wrong, is used to justify taking the gloves off.

>I think that there is a feeling that the other side is attempting to move policy forward

Which policy?

"Support me on this I'll support you on that" is typical and routine in the halls of legislators, although much quieter. If we look at this as DeSantis telling Disney "support me on this legislation and I'll support more of your self-governing district" it doesn't sound nearly as bad. It kinda happens all the time, everywhere laws and sausages are made.

That isn't what DeSantis said at all. Disney had already spoken, DeSantis said "because you said that, kiss your special district goodbye". This was no backroom deal.

> this just seems blatantly, clearly, obviously unconstitutional and yet there's been nary a peep about that aspect of it.

I think you could say much the same thing about a for-profit corporation running its own private government.

We're told at the end of the piece that the author "is an attorney based out of Maitland, Fla., with a practice concentrating on local government-related matters."

It would be nice to know if he's represented either Disney, the state of Florida or a relevant Florida county at any particular time. (Or all the time!) Being a paid advocate for one of the players doesn't disqualify him from talking. In fact, it might make his assessment even more valuable. But I do wish BloombergTax had offered a more informative ID.

The article doesn't seem heavy on opinion. It's just reiterating and summarizing facts that are available for us to review if we wanted. Did you notice any implicit biases or agendas within the article?

All of Disney's troubles are coming from retaliation to their direct political donations.

and this is why you donate anonymously. everyone likes to imagine Russians and Saudi's swaying US politics - the boogeyman du jour - but this is the more realistic outcome: retaliation by the incumbent party.

Just form the LLC, donate, shut it down before that state's reporting requirements come into effect.

for coders: an LLC instance rendered JIT

>Just form the LLC, donate, shut it down before that state's reporting requirements come into effect.

Is that legal?

It is legal. or the consequences are non-existent. Read the desired state's LLC statutes. Pick a state with the desired LLC statutes.

> All of Disney's troubles are coming from retaliation to their direct political donations.

> and this is why you donate anonymously.

If Disney had to donate anonymously, I bet it wouldn't donate at all. It's a corporation, and whatever donations it makes are most likely PR expenditures (either internally or externally directed).

The point is: it wouldn't be anonymous to the politicians it's supporting, however it's on the books.

Most corporations don't actually care about politics, beyond (1) What's good for my business? & (2) What's good PR?

The interesting thing about Disney is that in this case they were caught between a contradictory (1) & (2). Which, to the parent's point, a more adept PR department / anonymous donations wouldn't have allowed to happen in the first place.

DeSantis' realpolitik is pretty skillful. In this case: if Disney was quiet, he avoided the headache of fighting them; if Disney loudly opposed, he got news and political base support out of fighting them. Win/win.

Disney's public statement is worth far more than any donation. It's an American icon, a local behemoth, and a cultural institution.

It's a soulless corporation, and ascribing its motives to anything other than a currently-calculated maximizing of self-preservation and growth is delusion.

Translation: "Disney, after massive protests from their own employees due to donating significantly to support the "Don't Say Gay" bill in Florida, donated some to the other side, and because of this, Florida's governor decided to pull out the nuclear option by committing to something he didn't even understand in hopes of hurting Disney."

And you think this is...what, normal? The way things should be? That by daring to even try (very ineptly) to be "neutral", Disney deserves retaliation from the vindictive petty autocrat in the Governor's mansion?

I mean, I don't at all think Disney comes up smelling like roses in this, but to shrug your shoulders and say, "eh, if you wanted to be treated fairly, you shouldn't have let anyone know you don't unquestioningly support everything the current administration wants" seems to be...the world's most supine moral position. (After all, if there's nothing to be done about how bad things are, you don't have to feel guilty for not doing anything, right?)

Let's not clutch our pearls and act surprised. Florida politics has been a cesspool of graft, with a veneer of tan and teeth whitener, for decades.

I'm not trying to say that politics there aren't terrible.

I'm trying to say that, observing someone (whether human or corporation) fall afoul of that in such a very blatant way, and effectively saying, "Welp, you should've known not to criticize your overlords" helps to both normalize and perpetuate that kind of corruption and self-serving behavior.

> seems to be...the world's most supine moral position

well yeah thats because its an amoral position. was that not clear? is that clear now?

I do this in a variety of countries, towards people of multiple parties in those countries sometimes, I was born in the US and subject to its indoctrination but its not possible for me personally to subscribe to an idea of treating the US differently: do the thing that gets influence without consequence. figure out what that thing is. some countries enshrine their corruption in the rule of law. cool.

That’s not exactly it. Disney publicly criticized the new Florida “Don’t say gay” bill. And then said they’d no longer donate to FL legislature. They’d made a 50k donation to governor DeSantis in the past so it’s more about them NOT making donations. This act by Disney had to be public or it wouldn’t have had any weight.

Making those donations privately probably would defeat the purpose of showing support to the legislature.

Willing to bet you didn't read what the actual bill says or does. It does not say "don't say gay", it says sexual education to kids should not happen before a certain grade (3rd grade IIRC) and be age appropriate, which should be non controversial unless you have some weird notion that a 7 year old needs to be taught about sex.

Willing to bet you didn't read what the actual bill says or does.

Ah, yes, the new talking point that I’ve seen a lot of lately: “I’ll bet you haven’t even read it. Here, let me…” Yeah, save your patronizing, I read it just fine. And my take-away was, “don’t say gay” is about as accurate a summary as one is likely to get. Sure, those are exact words aren’t in there, but man, is that ever a weak rebuttal.

I've read the bill as well and I think the clear take-away is Florida doesn't want teachers talking to five-year-olds about sex, period. No sexual preferences are specified in the bill, whatsoever.

As ammending 1001.42 §8, Paragragh (c)3: "Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards."

This seems to pretty straightforwardly say that schools can't talk about the existence of gay or transgender people in K-3, or ever if it's not "age appropriate or developmentally appropriate"... according to standards that the state gets to set.

Heterosexuality and traditional male/female rolls are also sexual orientations and gender identities, are they not?

You can’t logically ignore half the reality of a statement to claim victimhood.

That's partly the issue of concern, isn't it? Giving children the idea that if they don't fulfil a traditional male or female role, then they must be some alternative gender identity.

Many people don't agree with this stance, both from a conceptual point of view, and that in practice it may lead impressionable children to want to modify their bodies to fit some idea of gender identity they've had instilled.

And to your point, the exact text is:

> Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.

Discussions on gender identity and sexual orientation are the only topics outlined as not allowed.

Actual sex education (whether it's the act itself, topics on puberty, etc.) seems to still be on the table.

https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2022/1557/?Tab=BillTex...

We teach kids about heterosexuality (or, more accurately, heteroromance) from a very young age. It's everywhere in our culture.

Teaching children that there is another option is not inherently sexual in nature, and the continued push to declare the very existence of non-heteroromantic orientations "sexual", and thus inappropriate, is a big part of the bigotry and oppression queer people of all types face.

No one is advocating that we show kids gay porn. They are advocating that we teach kids that being gay, bi, trans, aromantic, or anywhere else on the various spectra, is all fine and normal.

Why do parents, who have a voice in how schools are run (elections) need to be able to sue school districts for something they are not doing and do not plan to do?

Like educators are already focused on providing age appropriate education, what is the point of this bill?

Every state has a sex ed curriculum, plus every school system outside the US. By any measure: teenage pregnancies, STD rates, self-harm and suicide in connection with gender identity issues, anti-gay and anti-lesbian violence, sexual satisfaction later in life, rates of rape and other sexual violence, willingness to call out abusive behavior, and so on, the more liberal jurisdictions run circles around the christian conservative abstinence-only curricula.

Example, teen pregnancy rates, 7/1000 (New England) to 30/1000 (Louisiana): https://preview.redd.it/hjmbpqpbnkw41.png?width=640&crop=sma...

You'd think conservatives would want the same outcomes? Even abortion rates are higher in the South!

But, no, the only thing that's allowed to be divorced is their policy preferences from reality.

Who cares? This is literally an instance of a sitting government official using the power of his office to punish a private enterprise for not donating to him. It's that simple. That's what Disney did to offend DeSantis (that, and excersizing their free speech). It's a straight up banana republic shakedown.

> punish a private enterprise for not donating to him

That's a pretty big claim that I've yet to see evidence for. Is this conjecture?

> it says sexual education to kids should not happen before a certain grade

And it does not define what "sexual education" is.

> and be age appropriate

And it does not define what "age appropriate" is or specify what legislative body is reponsible for creating and maintaining that definition.

> unless you have some weird notion that a 7 year old needs to be taught about sex.

A chasm I see between people who have differing views of this legislation is around what "sex" means. Conservatives seem to focus very heavily on the idea that this is about teachers talking about sexual intercourse. The physical acts that adults engage in. Liberals interpret the term much more broadly to cover all of the ways that human sexuality affects society and families.

From the conservative perspective, it makes a lot of intuitive sense to prevent teachers from discussing things like foreplay, BDSM, lubrication, fellatio, etc. to small children.

From the liberal perspective, it is entirely impossible to talk about damn near anything related to human family structures and relationships if anything indirectly related to sexuality is off limits. "Why do most families have a mom and a dad?" "Where do babies come from?" "Why do they look like their parents sometimes and not other times?" "What does it mean to be adopted?" "What is the difference between a dad and a stepdad?" According to the literal interpretation of the law, none of these questions can even be hinted at inside a classroom.

So which is right? The text of the law itself is ambiguous, so you have to look at the subtext. I think we could all agree that it would be wrong to ship a live walrus to someone's house without their consent. But, as far as I know, there is no law specifically prohibiting it. Should there be? Probably not.

Legislatures have finite time, so laws are passed at a point in time because those advocating it feel that it solves a particular problem that is more important than other problems that could be solved. Understanding the intent behind those pushing the law is critical to knowing what it means. The text won't give you that. You have to look at the people and their agenda.

> it says sexual education to kids should not happen before a certain grad

No, it doesn't. It says material addressing sexual orientation or gender identity cannot happen before a certain grade level. Applied strictly on its face, it would ban a lot of routine, uncontroversial content that no one (including it's sponsors) would want banned, because lots of material for kids implicitly addresses/displays orientation and gender identity, and pretty much no one cares except that cultural conservatives care if the orientations or identities involved do not fit their norms of exclusively heterosexual orientation and cisgender identity.

This, as well as the overt comments by the sponsors about the specific content they have pointed to as examples of concern, leads too concerns from others that the intent of the party whose base is culturally conservative and that dominates the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of Florida State government is not to apply the law strictly and even-handedly on its face, but selectively to suppress material according to culturally conservative values.

The part of the law that people refers to as “Don’t say gay” goes as is:

Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.

Whether this can be reasonably interpreted as “don’t say gay” is an exercise left to the reader

It appears you may not have read the bill either. It does not prevent sexual education to kids (if it stated that, it wouldn't have been that overly controversial). But that isn't what it says. It states it prohibits "discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity in primary grade levels or in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students". That is a very important distinction from what you are saying. Sexual education is not prohibited, as long as it avoids discussing those two topics.

The other important distinction is that it is not just primary grade levels impacted, it is all levels (note the "or"s).

https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2022/1557/?Tab=BillTex...

The Netherlands begins education about sex and sexuality in primary school and it's not only been shown to lower the incidence of sexual abuse – as children can identify it when it happens to them and are more able to communicate with others to get help – but it also lowers the rate of teen pregnancy and STI infection. The idea that anyone would be against age-appropriate education of children about body autonomy, their anatomy, and their sexuality is mystifying to me.

1. Source 1: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/spring-fever 2. Source 2: https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/sex-ed-barriers-and...

And just to make sure this is clear: they aren't making donations to anyone in Florida, Republicans or Democrats alike. The Republican response to this was to punish Disney. We can't know what the Democratic response would have been since Democrats aren't in charge of anything in Florida.

"Keep donating or we'll punish you" is an interesting stance.

”Keep donating or we'll punish you" is an interesting stance.

It can’t be legal, surely?

I don't think Florida's autocrat cares about legality. The message has been sent, right? Now the little people can figure out how to clean up his mess.

We maybe get to find out if they keep fighting with each other and it lands up in the judicial branch.

IMHO, we didn't design our government to be impervious to pressures generated by large non-governmental financial entities, perhaps because the Founding Fathers hadn't completely taken in the possibilities apparent in the success of the Dutch East India Company. But I'm not a historian.

That's how the Third Reich operated.

>"Keep donating or we'll punish you" is an interesting stance.

So taxes but for entities you can't put in a cage or screw over at will?

The only reason it's not formalized with all sorts of rules and process like taxes is because "entities you can't put in a cage of screw over at will" is a short enough list to be handled on a case by case basis.

There are a myriad of news sources stating that Disney did, in fact, donate to multiple legislators who voted in favor of the "Don't Say Gay" bill – that was how all this started: They refused to speak out against the bill at first, but had donated to these legislators, and workers were calling it hypocritical for Disney to pretend to support LGBTQ workers while donating to Republicans and refusing to speak out against the bill. https://www.newsweek.com/disney-gave-least-250k-senators-tha...

Precisely accurate, yep. After the worker complaints, Disney responded by turning off donations to both parties rather than turning off donations to only Republicans.

Oh I see what you were saying – they're not donating anymore. Got it!

Disney doesn't have much trouble: see headline.

And why are you advocating for the corrupt, ineffective, possibly illegal, and cowardly alternative?

You think Disney is entirely inept? Does their courage somehow scare you? "Please, dear corporation, wear a helmet"?

They took a stance, they'll be fine, they have a spine.

It wasn't really about Disney it was about your own movements and using them as a cautionary tale.

It seems easy enough to make a new special purpose entity, not controlled by Disney. Set the millage rare very high, even higher than it is today, and tax Disney very much.

Collect enough money, store it in a bank, and assign it to paying the bonds.

Then dissolve the special purpose entity once you have collected enough money from Disney, and let the only thing remain be the bank account that will stay on until the bond is over.

Usually special purpose districts with taxing authority have supervisors elected by the property owners or residents in that district. (As does this one, it's just the only property owner is Disney). But I don't know for sure if it would be possible/legal in FL to do differently; like a special district with taxing authority over property owners in the district, whose board is just appointed by the governor or something?

I mean I guess they could... it wouldn't surprise me if there are legal problems with effectively just deciding to tax all Disney property extra.

I think everyone is getting this wrong. This is all posturing. The Florida legislature knows perfectly well that it can never unwind Reedy Creek. But if they can make a good show of trying, then that will earn points with their base, and when the courts shut them down they can blame "activist liberal judges" for their failure, despite the fact that it was a foregone conclusion. But the perception will be that they tried to fight the good fight against an evil overreaching corporation which was trying to corrupt Florida's innocent youth.

All of the liberals celebrating Disney's imminent "victory" are completely missing this bigger picture.

I feel like I've increasingly seen "pass legislation in bad faith that you know will be struck down" as a conservative legislative tactic (see recent abortion laws, bill curtailing voting rights) and I can't help but feel there should be some sort of consequence for consistently acting in bad faith.

The consequence is supposed to be that you get voted out of office. Unfortunately, there seems to be quite an audience for bad-faith politics nowadays. And I don't think this is unique to conservatives, and I also don't think that your examples are good ones. It seems increasingly clear that anti-abortion bills, for example, are not being passed in bad faith. The Republican Party really is intent on delivering on its promise to overturn Roe, and it looks like they are going to succeed.

On the other side, I'm pretty disappointed in how Merrick Garland is handling the events of Jan 6, 20201.

But we should probably shut this conversation down because we are getting very close to violating the HN prohibition on political discussions (if we have not already crossed that line).

> the HN prohibition on political discussions

While there was a brief experiment with such a prohibition, the planned end date was a long time ago (and the experiment was aborted early.)

> All of the liberals celebrating Disney's imminent "victory" are completely missing this bigger picture.

The optics of this…and things like the Musk/Twitter hand wringing serves a single purpose: It’s forcing the Democratic Party to start making 180 degree public shifts of some of their classic positions on things like large corporate sweetheart deals and limits on free speech/censorship. Right now, the progressive left and the Democratic Party seems to more closely resemble the moral majority right of the ‘80s and ‘90s than the Democratic Party of the last 50 years at least in adherence to a specific dogma with very little if any tolerance for contrary opinion.

I think its sad. Its driving liberals out of the Democratic Party because this new breed of progressive leftist is definitely not liberal.

I probably shouldn't be responding to this because it's skating dangerously close to the HN prohibition on political discussion (if we haven't already crossed that line) but I have to say that from where I sit most of the intolerance for dissent in the Democratic party seems to me to be coming from the left and not the center.

If I wasn’t clear…that was my point as well.

>It’s forcing the Democratic Party to start making 180 degree public shifts of some of their classic positions on things like [...] limits on free speech/censorship. [...] Its driving liberals out of the Democratic Party

I'm unclear on what you're trying to express here. "Free speech" is a liberal value, and the topic at hand is an anti-free-speech, pro-censorship bill by the opposing party. It seems one of these two things don't match.

I was referring to the numerous stories I have seen in the media by left leaning pundits since Musk’s offer arguing censorship as a “good thing”.

I'm pointing out that it's weird to act as if it's a "Democrat" thing in a thread about literal, state mandated censorship on the other side.

This is a personal bugbear of mine, but almost everyone actually agrees that "censorship" is a good thing, they just call it "moderation" when they happen to agree with what is being censored. The two terms are fundamentally synonyms with different connotations, and there's no agreed upon line as to which is which. Even free speech "absolutists" generally agree that some types of speech that should not be allowed (spam, child porn, and "shouting 'fire' in a crowded theater" being the three most common examples).

The culture war isn't over whether limitations on speech are good, it's an argument over what should be censored, and it's disingenuous to pretend otherwise.

>spam, child porn, and "shouting 'fire' in a crowded theater" being the three most common examples.

Two of your three are not free speech issues—-spam is completely legal in the US. Child porn is not, but not because speech limitations but because it victimizes and is violence against children. One (yelling fire in a crowded theater) is brought out pretty regularly as a legal limit on free speech…but technically it isn’t against the law. It’s an emotional reasoning why you might consider limiting free speech, but if I walked into a theater and yelled fire, I would not be prosecuted for what I said.

GP specifically brought up twitter, so it's clear we're not talking about the US legal concept of free speech, but rather the more poorly defined, nebulous "free speech" that (let's face it) most internet discussions are about. Talking about what you will and will not get arrested for isn't relevant in a discussion that is ultimately about moderation policies on twitter.

Not sure you read what I wrote, or if you did you specifically ignored it to try and split hairs here to argue some point I never made. I originally said Musk’s purchase of Twitter was causing some prominent dems and progressives to defend censorship and speak against the value of free speech. DeSantis taking on Disney is doing the same sort of thing, causing some prominent dems to start defending sweetheart tax deals for large corps. These were once sacred values to the democrats. No need for whataboutism on this…I frankly don’t care about the GOP.

Because those two ideals are damned important, I find it disturbing that the democrats are so quick to drop their values just to be contrarian. Leads me to believe that the values never meant much to them in the first place.

> I'm pointing out that it's weird to act as if it's a "Democrat" thing in a thread about literal, state mandated censorship on the other side.

I pointed out that the optics of the Reedy Creek repeal and some other recent events was causing some democrats to take public positions contrary to their platform history. I made no claim that the GOP was right or wrong here. Evaluating purely from a political tactic, if you can make your base happy and cause your opponents to disregard their long held beliefs to counter you, that is clever politics.

There has to be some sort of cognitive bias towards believing that a majority of political decisions are "posturing" or facades. If I'm being honest I fall for this interpretation way more often than I'm comfortable with.

There has to be some sort of cognitive bias that because someone says that one particular political decision is posturing that they therefore must be advancing the idea that "a majority" of political decisions are posturing.

I think you're misunderstanding me.

What I'm trying to express is that whenever someone opines that something "is posturing", I'm heavily inclined to agree.

OK, but that's not at all what you said. You said there was a cognitive bias towards believing in posturing, which means that these beliefs (that political decisions are posturing) are both prevalent and likely to be wrong.

Another point of view https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylVbq4gp260

Stupid thumbnail, but this lawyer has a different take on the bonds.

They can unwind it regardless of any contractual obligations. State can simply pass a law and dissolve any contract with stroke of a pen.

A government body can't just legislate away its debts. Courts exist for a reason.

I don't mean to be curt, but that's absurd. The whole purpose of having 3 separate branches of government is that they're not above the law. The legislature (or Congress, or the President) is constrained by the judiciary

Why even bother with that? Wouldn't a better method just to ignore that the bond exists, go about their business, and if they get sued, put their hands over their ears and say "LALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU"

If you had read the article, you would have learned that the state can't do that, and why they can't. That's what the entire article is about.

The article says "Under the U.S. Constitution, a state can only impair an existing contract if the impairment is reasonable and necessary to serve an important government purpose.". I hope you can see how broad and left to interpretation this is. In the worst case, state can modify its constitution and compell to disolve this specific contract. Courts only exist to protect the constitution and they need to follow the law created by legislature. Courts are not there to create new laws.

I can't help but see the irony that DeSantis is being described as an autocrat for trying to break up what is effectively a autonomous state that Walt Disney created to bypass most laws and oversight.

> Walt Disney knew that his plans for the land would be easier to carry out with more independence. Among his ideas for his Florida project was his proposed EPCOT, the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow, which was to be a futuristic planned city (and which was also known as Progress City). He envisioned a real working city with both commercial and residential areas, but one that also continued to showcase and test new ideas and concepts for urban living. Therefore, the Disney company petitioned the Florida State Legislature for the creation of the Reedy Creek Improvement District, which would have almost total autonomy within its borders. Residents of Orange and Osceola counties did not need to pay any taxes unless they were residents of the district. Services like land use regulation and planning, building codes, surface water control, drainage, waste treatment, utilities, roads, bridges, fire protection, emergency medical services, and environmental services were overseen by the district. The only areas where the district had to submit to the county and state would be property taxes and elevator inspections.

I am hard pressed to think of anything more anti-competitive and anti-trust than Reedy Creek.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reedy_Creek_Improvement_Distri...

How is it anticompetitive? None of those public services have real competition to begin with. Whether you agree with Disney being allowed to run their own utilities, roads, EMS, etc. there would not be any competition with or without Reedy Creek.

I actually find it ironic that Republicans are supporting this. It is an example where by and large a private company has done a better job providing various public services than the government would. Revoking Reedy Creek will put a greater tax burden on the relevant counties. It seems like a lose/lose to me, and also an example of stupid "culture wars" taking precedence over the politics of the real issue at hand.

To start Florida has a corporate income tax (~5.5%) and a sales tax (~6%), neither of which Disney has to pay in their autonomous zone. They only have to pay property tax. They also don't have to adhere to any developmental regulations (other than ones they impose on themselves, as they are the governing body) or related expenses.

Think Six Flags gets such perks?

Yes, Florida's corporate income tax is basically fake: https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-ne-florida-corporate...

And I can't find any evidence that Disney doesn't need to charge Florida sales tax within the parks. They definitely charge the state sales tax on ticket sales as I just checked the email receipt from my most recent trip.

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