Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) requested that the judge in Disney’s First Amendment case against him be dismissed, citing statements the judge has made in the past that the governor’s lawyers argue demonstrate a lack of impartiality.
DeSantis filed a motion on Friday in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida to ask that Chief Judge Mark Walker be disqualified from the case. Disney sued DeSantis in April after months of sparring with the governor over the Parental Rights in Education Act, better known as “Don’t Say Gay,” and steps that DeSantis has taken to increase state influence over the company.
The motion alleges that Walker voluntarily referred to the dispute between DeSantis and Disney during two unrelated cases pertaining to issues of free speech and the possibility of retaliation.
“Those remarks—each derived from extrajudicial sources—were on the record, in open court, and could reasonably imply that the Court has prejudged the retaliation question here,” the motion states. “Because that question is now before this Court, and because that question involves highly publicized matters of great interest to Florida’s citizens, the Court should disqualify itself to prevent even the appearance of impropriety.”
One of the cases that the motion brings up was a First Amendment lawsuit that Florida professors filed to challenge a law that DeSantis signed to establish a survey on “intellectual freedom and viewpoint diversity” on college campuses.
Walker dismissed the case on the grounds that the professors did not have standing to sue, but he said during the case, “What’s in the record, for example — is there anything in the record that says we are now going to take away Disney’s special status because they’re woke?”
The second case was for a challenge to the state’s Individual Freedom Act, more commonly known as the “Stop Woke Act,” which bans training in workplaces and schools that could make people feel “personal responsibility” for historical wrongdoings based on race, sex or national origin.
Walker said during that case, “And then Disney is going to lose its status because—arguably, because they made a statement that run afoul—ran afoul of state policy of the controlling party.”
The dispute between Disney and DeSantis started last year after the company criticized the state’s “Don’t Say Gay” law and vowed to work to repeal it.
DeSantis began slamming Disney soon after, eventually signing legislation in February to take away Disney’s self-governing status over the Reedy Creek Improvement District, a 25,000-acre region that Disney has owned and self-governed for decades.
Before a DeSantis-appointed board could take over under the newly formed Central Florida Tourism District, though, the Reedy Creek board signed an agreement to give Disney developmental authority over its parks, undermining the new board’s authority.
After the new board took action to try to declare the agreement void, Disney sued DeSantis on allegations that it was being punished for exercising its freedom of speech.
DeSantis said on Friday in New Hampshire that the chance of him backing down from the dispute with Disney is “zero.”