Lawyers for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Friday asked a federal judge to step down from a case brought by Disney.
John Guard, Florida’s Deputy Attorney General, made the request on behalf of Mr. DeSantis to Mark E. Walker, the Chief Justice for the Northern District of Florida. Judge Walker is presiding over the early stages of a Disney lawsuit filed last month in which Mr. DeSantis and a board of directors overseeing Walt Disney World’s government services were accused of participating in “a targeted campaign of government retaliation.”
In their motion to disqualify Judge Walker, Mr Guard and the lawyers for the five members of the board of directors said two comments made last year “can reasonably be understood as reflecting the court’s anticipation of the retaliatory theory here of Disney and therefore raises significant doubts about the impartiality of the court.”
In both cases, Judge Walker brought Disney up in hearings for unrelated cases, briefly citing actions by Mr. DeSantis and his allies in the Florida legislature against the company as examples of retaliatory conduct, the filing said. Judge Walker made one of the remarks at a hearing in a college campus intellectual freedom case, a day after Mr. DeSantis “publicly refuted” the idea that he was “retaliating” against Disney, according to the filing.
The second comment was made in June at a hearing on Florida’s “Stop WOKE Act,” which limits discussion of “white man’s privilege” and other racial biases during diversity training programs offered by private employers. According to the filing, Judge Walker cited what was going on between Mr. DeSantis and Disney as an example of punitive action.
In August, Judge Walker made national headlines for blocking parts of the bill, officially called the Individual Freedom Act, defended by Mr. DeSantis.
A Disney spokesperson declined to comment. Judge Walker, who was appointed by President Barack Obama in 2012, did not respond to a message asking for comment.
Mr. DeSantis and Disney have been sparring for more than a year over a special tax district that includes Disney World. The battle began when the company criticized a Florida education law that opponents labeled “Don’t Say Gay” because it limits classroom instruction on gender identity and sexual orientation — much to the anger of Mr. DeSantis, who repeatedly vowed to payback.
Since then, at the urging of Mr. DeSantis, Florida lawmakers have targeted Disney – the state’s largest taxpayer – with a variety of hostile measures. In February, they gave Mr. DeSantis control of Disney World’s government departments, ending the company’s long-held ability to self-run its 25,000-acre resort as if it were a county.
The board members appointed by Mr. DeSantis soon learned that a previous Disney-controlled board of directors had approved development contracts that laid out a growth plan for the resort. An attempt to nullify those agreements has resulted in dueling lawsuits, with Disney suing Mr. DeSantis and his allies in federal court and dismissed the governor’s tax district appointees in state court.
