>>This week on NewsNight, Governor DeSantis says Florida lawmakers will take up legislation to revoke recent development agreements between Disney and the former Reedy Creek board.

>>In direct defiance of the will of the people of Florida.

>>What might the move mean for the land surrounding Disney property and for the company's ability to self-regulate its monorail and rides?

Round three in the state's fight against Disney.

NewsNight starts now.

[MUSIC] Hello, I'm Steve Mort and welcome to NewsNight where we take an in-depth look at the top stories and issues in central Florida and how they affect all of us.

We start tonight with Governor DeSantis and his campaign against Disney, as we've told you about on the show before.

The previous Reedy Creek board had approved a development agreement with Disney, allowing the company to carry out high density development of district land without board approval.

That effectively stripped the new governor-appointed board of many of its powers.

Now the legislature is set to pass an amendment revoking the agreement following an announcement this week by the governor, and the board met Wednesday to try to cement its authority over the district.

>>At the end of the day, we made the decision as a state, as a people through the medium of our elections that we would not have one corporation serving as its own government.

That's not good government, and it's not something that we want to entertain in Florida any longer.

And whatever rationale there was 60 years ago to do that, clearly now we're in a much different era as a state.

>>Governor DeSantis.

While the agreement was reached in publicly noticed hearings, the governor says Disney failed to comply with all legal requirements for development agreements.

In addition to nullifying the development agreements, the governor says lawmakers will strip Disney of its regulatory oversight of rides and its monorail, putting the state in charge instead.

And he suggested developing Reedy Creek land that Disney does not own for other things.

Even floating the idea of a new state prison.

But the plans have received pushback from Democrats and conservatives.

I talked about all of this this week with Rick Foglesong, the author of Married to the Mouse A History of Walt Disney World and the Reedy Creek Improvement District.

>>I had the opportunity in the late nineties when I wrote my book, Married to the Mouse, to access the Disney archives in Burbank, where I saw the founding documents.

And subsequently I was able to interview the key attorney who wrote that legislation.

And I think that in order to try to undo this legislation, you need to well understand that complicated arrangement.

And I don't think the governor or the state legislators, they know how this entity was founded.

And therefore, I think they are challenged in a big way by the task of undoing it.

>>I'm interested what you made of CEO Bob Iger's recent remarks that the state's actions are anti-business and anti Florida.

>>It was a political statement that may be right on, but nonetheless a political statement where Disney has avoided making those kinds of statements.

I don't know about the truth of the assertion that the governor has taken an anti Florida posture.

I see how you could argue that.

But I do think that this is not a winning strategy for someone who wants to run for president of the United States, at least someone who wants the support of big corporations.

Disney is not alone in this regard.

>>Rick Foglesong there.

Well, the Central Florida Tourism Oversight Board met Wednesday and says it will look at taking several steps, including developing affordable and workforce housing in the district.

Disney, by the way, also announced it would break ground on an affordable housing development next year.

Meanwhile, you can find a link to the legislative amendment, effectively nullifying the Disney Reedy Creek Development Agreement on our website.

wucf.org/newsnight along the bottom of your screen.

Well, let's bring in our panel now to break it all down.

Joining us in the studio, Christopher Heath covers politics for WFTV, Channel 9.

Thanks for coming on again.

Appreciate it.

And back to the studio.

We're really excited about it, Beth Kassab now with the Winter Park Voice.

Thanks for coming in, Beth.

>>Thanks for having me.

>>Thanks for your time today, guys.

Chris, let me start with you on this one.

I mean, we got a look at the text that Amendments tried to revoke that 11th hour development agreement.

The board this week also asserted its superiority, I guess, over planning issues in the Reedy Creek district.

But could it still be problematic to unwind all of this, is that to be difficult?

>>Yeah, constitutionally.

And it depends on which constitution you want to go after in the U.S. Constitution or the Florida Constitution.

The Florida Constitution has robust property rights written into it.

And Disney is a property owner.

So there's that.

Then there's also the U.S. Constitution, which deals not just with property, but also contracts.

So Disney's kind of got two different avenues.

It wants to go through.

If it if it wants to challenge this, it can go federal and it can go state.

Both of them are going to be really heavy lifts for the state to say, no, no, no, this is in this is in the furtherance of good governance.

This is not just targeted at one landowner.

This is something we need to do for the whole state.

This is going to be a real problem if this ends up in court, which it probably will, and it'll be there for a while.

>>Disney definitely has smart lawyers, for sure.

I mean, Beth, the governor has called a development agreement a sham.

Right.

I think that was the word that he used.

I mean, is there an indication that that missteps were taken by the previous board?

>>Well, that's certainly what we are hearing from Ron DeSantis team is that there is some degree of illegality in terms of how Disney went about this.

But-- >>Multiple infirmities.

>>Yes, multiple infirmities is the word I think he used Monday.

But the you know, there's no indication of that.

Disney has certainly said, look, this was all properly noticed.

We operated within the sunshine.

The public was made aware it was advertised in the Orlando Sentinel.

>>Which is a requirement, right?

>>It is, yeah.

As of right now.

That's right.

So.

So there's there's not really an indication as to what those missteps specifically were.

>>What might have been.

Chris, to me, the governor also wants to strip Disney of its self regulatory oversight.

Right.

Things like the rides and the monorail that we're all familiar with.

But other companies like Universal and SeaWorld, Right.

Also have this this carve out these these exceptions.

Right.

How does the governor think this might be applied only to Disney?

Is that only going to be special districts?

>>And that's what they're trying to say, is well only if you're in a special district does this apply to you.

Again, this gets into kind of the equal application of a law.

>>Which could be legally tricky right?

>>Which is going to, yes, be legally tricky to go out and say, well, we're only going to inspect Disney, but Busch Gardens, no, and SeaWorld no.

And Universal, no.

I mean, at a certain point, you just can't make that fly.

And that's kind of where you're at here.

Now, listen, if they if they want to come out and say all rides in the state of Florida, we don't care how big you are, we don't care.

You know, if you're a permanent ride or if you're a carnival, we inspect you.

That's the end of it.

They're probably okay there.

But if you say no, no, just Disney.

And just because they're in a special district, it's going to be real hard to stand in front of a judge and say, we're doing this out of good governance and not just targeting one company.

>>Of course there has been a broader discussion about ride safety with the with the accident at the icon park that we that we saw last year.

I mean, Beth I mean, with this sort of targeting of Disney specifically, it seems I mean, does the governor open himself up to claims that this is retribution rather than, as he says, just sort of simply targeting Disney because it needs to play by the same rules as everyone else?

>>Yes.

When it comes to retribution, I think the governor has walked out on that plank and saw - sawed it off while he's standing over the ocean.

I mean, not only has has Bob Iger himself said this, many observers from across the state have said this.

And DeSantis himself uses a lot of language.

When we hear him talk publicly about this topic, that how he's going to win, you know, that Disney thinks it got the best of them through this agreement.

But, you know, he is going to come out on top.

So this does seem to be, at least on some level, some one upsmanship here.

And, you know, there's there's no telling where that's going to end.

>>I notice a lot of people are keeping score one zero, Disney one all.

Chris, one of the headlines from the governor's announced this announcement this week was that nullifying this a development agreement could open the door to other types of development within that Reedy Creek land adjacent to Disney property.

Could that be potentially concerning to Disney?

I mean, they they want to sort of be able to have a say over what is on that land.

Right?

>>That kind of gets into the question of, you know, I know he jokingly, I would assume, jokingly said we might build a prison there, which is obviously interesting considering he vetoed a prison in last year's budget, which was in the budget, he line item vetoed it.

So jokingly, perhaps saying he wanted to build a prison there.

I mean, is this this is getting to the point where it's hard to take a lot of this seriously.

And I would say, politically speaking, we're losing the plot.

Why?

Why exactly is the governor going after Disney?

Because I think a lot of people are starting to ask that question at at a certain point, what's what's behind all of this?

Why are we doing this?

Did Disney get caught doing something egregious?

No, but if you play it back fast, they criticized a law that the state was considering.

That's the genesis of all of this.

And now here we are a year, year and a half later, two special sessions, a new governor appointed board.

And for what?

>>Well, this goes back purely to Disney expressing its First Amendment right to criticize.

>>That fundamental-- >>Right, to criticize a law that was in the works at the time.

>>I mean, Beth, this is all quite complicated.

And one of the things that Rick Foglesong was talking to me about was, you know, he looked at those founding documents and they are astoundingly complicated.

And the Disney lawyers understand what is in there extremely well and how hard it is to unwind.

But one of it deals with one part of it deals with property taxes.

I mean, it struck me that the governor sort of said that Disney would no longer be able to assess its own property for tax mileage and the like.

But but Disney says it's never actually done that.

>>Oh, yeah.

Look, people who live here know that that's not the case.

I mean, Disney and the other theme parks, I should add to Universal and SeaWorld, they have a long history of challenges and negotiations with local property appraisers.

It's the job of the property appraiser that's an elected local position to assess everyone's property, including these big theme parks.

And we've seen time and time again Disney and the appraisers go to court over the values because it does it does hit them right in the wallet.

Right.

It set their tax obligations, so.

>>It will be interesting to see how that pans out.

And we'll talk more about the politics of all this a bit later in the program.

Meanwhile, many of you have been sharing your thoughts on both sides of this issue with us on social media.

You, too, can join the conversation.

We're at WUCFTV on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

We always like to hear from you.

All right.

Next tonight, the abortion story.

Governor DeSantis last week signed a six week abortion ban into law in Florida.

It contains some exceptions, but places a burden of proof on those seeking the procedure up to 15 weeks in cases of rape, incest or human trafficking.

Well, I spoke on the program with Chabeli Carrazana, Florida based reporter for the 19th News, who's been following the path of the abortion legislation across the nation.

And here's some more of our interview.

>>That is going to significantly change the landscape of access in the South.

Currently, there are only three states in the South that don't have a six week ban.

That's South Carolina, North Carolina and Florida.

South Carolina has about three clinics and they are not providing abortions beyond 14 weeks.

North Carolina has about a dozen.

And Florida has about 60.

And so if Florida goes dark, that is going to have huge, huge implications for folks all across the south.

Already, we have seen in the last year a 38% increase in out-of-state abortions in Florida because folks have been coming here, as other states have, and have enacted bans.

And without Florida, there are going to be very, very, very few options for folks.

The further you have to go, the more distance you have to travel, the more time you take off work.

Those are all barriers, particularly for low income women that are going to be really insurmountable across the country.

>>Chabeli Carrazana from the 19th.

Chris, let me start with you on this one.

I mean, we talked recently on the program about the abortion legislation, but just remind us about the main parts of that legislation.

>>Well, the yeah, I mean, the main part of what this is, is it does obviously bring it down from 15 to 6.

There are a couple of carve outs within the six week.

You know, for for rape and for incest, which are not in the 15 week.

And it does, you know, put a couple of different barriers in there that make it harder for women to seek an abortion into the point, you know, that was just made.

Again, Florida has kind of become an abortion destination in the southeast.

That's going to start to go.

And Puerto Rico still is pretty wide open.

But that, once again, I think, dovetails into the idea that abortion is legal.

If you can afford it, if you can afford a plane ticket, you can get an abortion.

We are essentially now making it harder for people to travel by automobile to get it.

And Florida is going to be going dark relatively soon, up to six weeks.

>>Or so before people basically in our region in the Deep South and some parts of the Midwest, I mean, abortions will still be available as Chris mentioned up to 15 weeks with some very limited numbers after that.

But how will patients still be able to obtain those later procedures?

What are the requirements going to be?

>>So my understanding is they're asking for some type of evidence of rape or incest.

So for a lot of >>Right.

>>In a lot of cases, this would be perhaps a police report, some type of physical examination.

And that the fact of the matter is that most women do not have these types of documents to show.

Most women do not report instances of rape and incest.

It's very hard to do.

There's a lot of reasons as to why that is.

But we absolutely know over studies over many years that that that's the case.

So this while it's an exception in the letter of the law, how practical is this exception going to be for women?

You know, it seems like it would still be extremely limiting.

>>It gets into the politics of this because you did have Florida as the outlier in the Southeast.

We were still at 15 weeks when so many other states had either done outright bans or gone to the heartbeat bill and, you know, essentially said, well, six weeks, you know, nothing passed that.

So we had kind of become this outlier.

And politically that was untenable with with a governor that is eyeing a bid for the White House and with a Republican supermajority in Tallahassee that was not going to stand much longer.

And listen, the Republicans in Tallahassee will tell you we won an overwhelming victory in November.

People have spoken.

They felt like abortion was on the ballot, at least in some form or fashion.

And they're they feel like what they're doing is delivering on what the voters wanted back in November.

And so we'll see we'll see how popular this is going forward, >>No doubt.

And I mean, that's true to a certain extent.

I mean, how much of a victory do you think it is for sort of antiabortion campaigners to have Florida in that six week abortion ban column?

>>Oh, there's there's no question this is a huge achievement and a very long run up of chipping away at the right to an abortion in the United States.

This will be a significant turning point.

>>This ban isn't in place yet.

I think it's important to point out it's got the governor's signature, Chris, but when would it come into force?

>>There's a couple of different triggers within the bill.

One is the Florida Supreme Court rules on whether or not Florida's right to privacy, which previous Supreme courts in Florida had ruled, covers abortion.

This court is obviously different, has been remade.

This court could rule that, no, the right to privacy does not extend to abortion, in which case the 15 week ban would be good to go under the Florida Constitution.

Another one that's in there, which is much less likely, is that Florida voters amend the state constitution to remove the right for privacy or specify that the right to privacy doesn't count for abortion.

That's a lot less likely.

What's more likely is this, of course, Supreme Court will hand down a ruling saying the right to privacy doesn't cover abortions.

Therefore, 15 weeks is good to go and by extension, now six weeks as well.

>>Well, the passage of the Florida abortion legislation and the ongoing feud with Disney comes at a critical time for Governor DeSantis anticipated run for president.

The governor has been criticized for his response to the devastating flooding in Fort Lauderdale as he campaigns around the country.

And political watchers say his poll numbers against Donald Trump and the Republican primary match up are headed in the wrong direction.

Chris, the governor signed the six week abortion ban that we were just talking about late at night before traveling to Liberty University, a very conservative university in Virginia, where he didn't mention it.

And I don't think he's mentioning it either at other subsequent events.

Why do you think that the case that why is he not running on this?

>>I think you need to look no further than Congresswoman Nancy Mace, a Republican who has come out and been very forceful and said this is a losing issue for the Republican Party.

Donald Trump even alluded to this after the November elections and said abortion is not an issue that we can win on.

And I think for a long time what you saw with Republicans and conservatives was they could run on abortion because Roe versus Wade was out there as a backstop.

They could kind of say whatever they wanted because they knew Roe versus Wade was always going to be there to stop that from happening.

Then you have the Dobbs decision.

Now you actually have to govern on some of the things you've been saying and you're seeing this go into effect and you're seeing people who may be center right saying, I'm not comfortable.

Maybe I'm good with 15 weeks, maybe I'm good with 20 weeks, but I'm not good with outright bans.

I'm not good with six weeks.

And that's why I think the governor was in, I think, a no win situation.

He needed to do this politically.

But long term, it may be problematic.

>>Yeah, Beth, I mean, several high profile Republicans in the state here are endorsing President Trump.

I just got an email blast from the Trump campaign saying that.

Representative Mike Waltz, Congressman Waltz was endorsing Donald Trump.

I mean, could that be an indication that Republicans are sort of losing interest in some of these culture war issues that really have been the foundation up to this point of the governor's appeal to many of his voters and also to DeSantis donors?

>>Yeah.

So I think it's not only are they losing interest, but they're just simply looking at the facts.

I mean, it goes back to what Chris was saying.

If you look at how some of these fights have played out nationally, in other states where abortion was on the ballot or where key races were on the ballot that had that were centered in some way on some of these cultural issues that Democrats have come out on top.

And that is not going to be ignored.

>>We saw that in the midterms, right?

>>Yes.

And as we head into the presidential election next year, that's going to become very top of mind.

So, yes, we are seeing evidence of this pull back.

How long does that last?

I would say we're still very early on.

It's very hard to game this out.

>>The government hasn't even declared, right?

>>Exactly.

And people are questioning that, asking what's going on.

But, you know, it's early.

But, yes, we are seeing early indications.

>>Yeah.

Chris, on the Disney issue, I mean, the governor has gotten some pretty stiff conservative pushback on this.

Republicans like Mike Pence and Chris Christie have hit him on this.

Does this open up the governor for criticism on limited government grounds?

>>Oh, absolutely.

And I think there's two real facets here.

One, limited government for sure.

The Republican Party's always been the party of big business.

But here you are going after a business and a business that has given you lots of money over the years.

Now, does it fold into some of the other things where what does it fold in with some of the other things we're seeing, such as the GOP going after Bud Light, who's also Anheuser-Busch, has given a lot of money, the Republicans.

Does it fold in with that?

Yes, but it kind of runs counter to what has always been the GOP kind of mantra of let business do business things will stay out of their way.

That's part of the other is the appearance of this.

When it came to light that Disney had done this last minute deal with the old Reedy Creek board.

It was the one of the campaign spokespersons for Donald Trump put out a tweet saying essentially, you know, Donald Trump wrote The Art of the Deal.

He negotiated Mideast peace.

Ron DeSantis just got ruled by Mickey Mouse.

That's a bad look.

And when you have the Trump campaign dunking on you for getting beat by what is being characterized as a cartoon, that's not good.

>>Yeah, the cartoon, of course, is represented by very smart lawyers.

But nonetheless, it's it's a pretty good campaign theme, I guess, for them.

You know, as Chris said, you know, Trump has sort of mocked the governor on this.

I mean, could this ongoing sort of tete a tete between Disney and the governor, what do you think?

I mean, could it hurt the governor's potential run for president?

>>Yes, I think it's going to I think we're going to see one of two things.

His he will either dig into this and and continue to latch on to this and make this a central element of his campaign going forward, or we're going to see a pretty strong pivot.

And I suspect at some point we will see that pivot away from some of these issues.

But it's going I guess it's going to depend on on how hard Trump keeps hitting back and whether DeSantis feels like he can take some some actual swings himself.

>>Well, to that point, Chris, you know, a super PAC aligned with Governor DeSantis actually did release an ad attacking Donald Trump for his attacks on Governor DeSantis.

What's happened, I think, to Donald Trump was the theme of it.

I mean, is that an indication that maybe the governor is going to become more comfortable at fighting back?

>>I mean, it's one thing to have a PAC do that.

It's another thing to have spokes people do that until you see the governor stand up there and say something directed right at Donald Trump.

It's it's that's that's I think what we're all waiting to see is, is he willing to go there?

And the closest we've seen is after the election.

You know, when he basically made his scoreboard comment, he's like, well, look at the scoreboard.

You know, I won big Republicans won big in Florida.

All these Trump candidates across the nation lost big.

I'm the winner.

That's the closest he's come to a direct confrontation with.

Let's be frank here.

The man who put him in the governor's mansion.

It was December of 2017 when Donald Trump put out a tweet saying, you know what, I'm backing Ron DeSantis over Adam Putnam.

Putnam was up in the polls up until that point.

And from that point on, Putnam was playing catch up and ultimately lost the nomination.

And DeSantis went on to now a second term in the governor's mansion.

>>Well, we've got a long way to go in that fight, for sure.

Well, before we go, as some of you know, Beth took a break from journalism after her time at the Orlando Sentinel.

But like many reporters, she couldn't stay away.

>>Couldnt do it.

>>From the game.

You're now the editor.

The Winter Park Voice.

Beth, just tell us what the Winter Park Voice is for those who may not be familiar with it and what you're hoping to achieve there.

>>Yeah.

So the Winter Park Voice is a - we're becoming established as a nonprofit news organization.

The mission is really to cover local government and local communities in and around Winter Park and to just really dive into some of the issues there.

We're a very small organization, but our intention is to just help readers be more informed about their local governments.

I've had a passion for local news for a very long time, and it's often local news.

Local decisions made in city halls and county commission chambers that affect people the most.

And we do spend a lot of time talking about these national and state issues, and they are extremely important.

There's no question about that.

But when it comes to how good your schools are and your parks are, and if you're waters clean and if your utilities get restored after a hurricane, that's your local government.

>>Is that the strength of these sort of hyper local outlets compared to other sort of as newspapers in general get stripped back, the Sentinel doesn't have people necessarily at all these meetings all over the place.

>>Yeah, it's such a challenge.

You know, it was a big challenge for us when I was at the newspaper and regional newspapers across the country.

It's not just here in central Florida are being cut.

And as a result, we're seeing more and more of these hyper local sites come in to fill in the gaps.

And I think we're going to start to see more of it.

I think it's incredibly important.

We are at WinterParkVoice.com It's completely free.

We're not selling ads or subscriptions.

This is just a public service to keep people more informed about the place they live.

>>Well, I know many of us in central Florida happy to see you back in the in the journalism game, Beth.

But that is all the time we have for this week, I'm afraid.

My thanks to Beth Kassab, editor of The Winter Park Voice.

Thanks so much for coming in, Beth.

Really appreciate it.

>>Thanks, Steve.

>>And Christopher Heath, politics reporter, WFTV Channel 9.

Thanks for coming in as well, Chris.

Good to see you again.

And we'll see you next Friday night at 8:30 here on WUCF.

In the meantime, for all of us here at NewsNight, take care and have a great week.