{"id":31841,"date":"2023-04-27T21:12:43","date_gmt":"2023-04-28T01:12:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=31841"},"modified":"2023-04-27T21:12:46","modified_gmt":"2023-04-28T01:12:46","slug":"rubio-warns-against-florida-going-after-companies-for-political-purposes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2023\/04\/27\/rubio-warns-against-florida-going-after-companies-for-political-purposes\/","title":{"rendered":"Rubio warns against Florida going after companies for “political purposes”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Sen. Marco Rubio <\/a>(R-Fla.) on Thursday warned against politicians going after companies for \u201cpolitical purposes\u201d after Disney sued Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis <\/a>(R), the latest escalation in the ongoing standoff between the governor and Entertainment Company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Rubio said in an interview<\/a> on Fox News that Florida addressing an arrangement that gave Disney \u201cgovernmental-type powers\u201d is a \u201cperfectly legitimate thing.\u201d But he said it raises concerns that a business could face retribution for disagreeing politically with a state legislature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think where it gets problematic in the eyes of some people is when you start creating the idea \u2014 and I\u2019m not saying we\u2019re there yet as a state \u2014 but the idea that somehow if you run crossways with us politically, whoever\u2019s in charge, then you may wind up in the crosshairs of the legislature for political purposes to make a statement at you,\u201d Rubio said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rubio\u2019s remarks come one day after Disney sued DeSantis, alleging the governor<\/a> is harming the business as punishment for it exercising its right to free speech. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tensions have been high between DeSantis and Disney for months since Disney criticized the state\u2019s Parental Rights in Education Act, which restricts the discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in public schools and has been called \u201cDon\u2019t Say Gay\u201d by critics. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After Disney denounced<\/a> the law and said it would work to repeal it last year, DeSantis took action to increase state control over the 25,000-acre area that Disney has self-governed for decades, the Reedy Creek Improvement District. He slammed Disney<\/a> for having \u201cextraordinary special privileges\u201d as an \u201cunaccountable Corporate Kingdom.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

DeSantis signed a law granting himself the authority to appoint a five-member board to oversee the district, which would be renamed the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District. But before the board could take over, the previous members of the Reedy Creek district signed an agreement<\/a> to give Disney developmental authority over the theme park. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rubio said he is concerned that if this type of situation happens \u201ctoo many times,\u201d businesses might hesitate to come to Florida out of fear that they could face political retaliation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAgain, a hypothetical issue, but I do think that Disney is not different from any other company in the world, and I don\u2019t know why they should have government powers. That\u2019s something that was given to them a long time ago, and that\u2019s up for review every year the legislature looks at it,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rubio is not the only Republican who commented on the situation between DeSantis and Disney. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Former President Trump, the frontrunner in the 2024 Republican presidential primary that DeSantis is widely expected to jump into, predicted that Disney<\/a> might not invest additional money in Florida or leave the state over the feud. He said DeSantis is \u201cbeing absolutely destroyed\u201d by the company. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley,<\/a> a former governor of South Carolina, suggested in a tweet<\/a> that her home state would accept Disney if it wished to relocate from Florida.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) on Thursday warned against politicians going after companies for \u201cpolitical purposes\u201d after Disney sued Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), the latest escalation in the ongoing standoff between the governor and… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31842,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[15],"tags":[4929],"class_list":["post-31841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-rubio-warns-against-florida-going-after-companies-for-political-purposes"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31841"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31841\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}