Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) said he was disappointed Disney weighed in on Florida’s Parental Rights in Education Act and sparked a monthslong battle between the entertainment mogul and Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL).
Disney joined the fight against the bill in March 2022, seeking to repeal Florida‘s parental rights law. The bill prioritized parental education rights and banned classrooms from teaching about gender identity and sexual orientation from kindergarten through third grade at the time.
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Scott said he thinks the company should have taken a different approach.
“The bill that they’re talking about is a bill that said, you know, we shouldn’t be teaching grade school kids about sex,” Scott said in an interview with NewsNation’s The Hill on Wednesday, according to the Hill. “I completely agree with that. I was disappointed that Disney weighed in on that bill.”
DeSantis and Disney are currently locked in a lawsuit battle. DeSantis is working tirelessly to strip the company of its autonomy over the Reedy Creek Improvement District, where its theme park is in Florida. In April, Disney sued DeSantis arguing that the Florida governor violated the company’s First Amendment rights.
Scott, governor of the state from 2011 to 2019, said he hopes both sides can come to the table and negotiate.
“I think we’ve got to figure out a way forward here to bring everybody back to the table,” Scott said, “so we can continue to grow tourism, grow jobs, you know, give opportunities for people.”
“I had a good working relationship with Disney when I was governor,” Scott said. “So how do we all come together and continue to make our state a better state? You got to start by everybody sitting around a table and figure that out.”
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Lawyers for DeSantis’s special Central Florida Tourism Oversight District board say the agreement Disney made with the previous Reedy Creek Improvement District board on Feb. 8, which essentially negated DeSantis’s control over the company, is “null and void” because it did not follow state sunshine laws.
The Florida governor has vowed to investigate Disney’s taxes for the resort’s hotels and impose tolls on the roads that go to the resort’s theme parks.
