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Comment by BryantD | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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!

”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.

>"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.

That's how the Third Reich operated.

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