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Column: DeSantis notches a courthouse win against Disney, thanks to a Trumpian right-wing judge
On the face of it, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis achieved an important victory Wednesday in his two-year battle with Walt Disney Co., as a federal judge tossed Disney’s lawsuit contending that DeSantis moved against the company in retaliation for its criticism of an anti-gay state law.
DeSantis certainly thought so. “The Corporate Kingdom is over,” his spokesman crowed. “The days of Disney controlling its own government and being placed above the law are long gone…. In short — as long predicted, case dismissed.”
Disney was circumspect about its loss. As my colleagues Christi Carras and Ryan Faughnder reported, the company appealed the judge’s order Thursday to the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. “This is an important case with serious implications for the rule of law, and it will not end here. If left unchallenged, this would set a dangerous precedent and give license to states to weaponize their official powers to punish the expression of political viewpoints they disagree with.”
Yet there’s more to the story than that. Although most reports on the judge’s decision noted that the judge, Allen Winsor, was appointed to the federal bench by Donald Trump, they didn’t take a closer look at his record. And that record suggests he came to the case with preconceived notions that worked strongly against Disney.
Assessing judges’ decisions by citing the presidents who appointed them hasn’t always been a useful approach; it hasn’t been uncommon for appointees to confound the politics of their appointers.
But it’s been more useful with Trump appointees, because on the whole they’ve been more openly ideological than their colleagues on the bench, and less qualified too. That may be the case here.
Before turning to Winsor’s record, let’s delve into the lawsuit itself.
As I’ve reported before, the issue was a law pushed by DeSantis and enacted by his supine GOP-controlled state legislature that effectively liquidated the special district that the state created in 1967 to give Disney near-dictatorial control over the 43-square-mile site of Walt Disney World and its related theme parks and resorts outside Orlando.
The Reedy Creek Improvement District, governed by a board handpicked by Disney, kept the site in manicured comeliness for more than a half-century.
But the Parental Rights in Education law, which was signed by DeSantis in March 2022, created a breach between DeSantis and the company that is his state’s largest public employer.
The law, dubbed “Don’t Say Gay” by its critics, suppresses, even outlaws, discussions about “sexual orientation or gender identity” in Florida schools through third grade and places limits on those discussions in upper grades.
The law was part of DeSantis’ campaign to eradicate what he called “woke” ideology from Florida, a stance plainly designed to appeal to a conservative voting bloc as he prepared an ultimately fruitless campaign for the GOP nomination for president. After some hesitation and goaded by its own diverse workforce, Disney came out publicly against the Don’t Say Gay law.
DeSantis and his legislative henchpersons were perfectly candid about their motivations in dissolving the Reedy Creek district: It was retaliation for Disney’s outspokenness.
In its lawsuit challenging the dissolution, the company quoted a sponsor of the Reedy Creek dissolution bill as saying, “This bill does target one company. It targets the Walt Disney Company.”
In his campaign autobiography, “The Courage to Be Free,” DeSantis called Disney’s position on the Don’t Say Gay law “a textbook example of when a corporation should stay out of politics.” He added, “Disney … clearly crossed a line in its support of indoctrinating very young schoolchildren in woke gender identity politics.”
Anyway, the law passed, Reedy Creek was refashioned as the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District, and DeSantis replaced Disney’s board of handpicked corporate functionaries with his own handpicked Republican functionaries.
Amusingly enough, one of the new board members is Bridget Ziegler, a co-founder of the notoriously bluenosed book-banning organization Moms for Liberty and the wife of the then-chairman of the Florida Republican Party, Christian Ziegler.
As it happens, the Zieglers have since become embroiled in a sex scandal involving a three-way tryst and resulting in possible criminal charges against Christian Ziegler. He has been ousted as GOP chairman, but his wife is still on the district board.
That brings us back to Winsor and his ruling on the Disney lawsuit. In a letter opposing his 2018 nomination to the federal bench, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights called him “a young, conservative ideologue who has attempted to restrict voting rights, LGBT equality, reproductive freedom, environmental protection, criminal defendants’ rights, and gun safety.”
That’s quite a litany, but it falls entirely within the wheelhouse of typical Trump appointees and the ideology of the Federalist Society, the right-wing lawyers organization that placed many candidates for judicial appointments on Trump’s desk. Winsor joined the Federalist Society in 2005, according to a questionnaire he submitted to the Senate upon his judicial nomination.
As Florida’s solicitor general during the governorship of Republican Rick Scott, Winsor submitted a federal court brief defending the state’s ban on same-sex marriage asserting, among other arguments, “a clear and essential connection between [heterosexual] marriage and responsible procreation and childrearing.” The judge in that case called the arguments “an obvious pretext for discrimination” and ruled the ban unconstitutional.
Winsor also defended a Florida election law that obstructed voter registration in a way that cost 14,000 Floridians their right to vote, with the burden falling mostly on minorities. The law was ultimately enjoined by a federal judge as a violation of the 1st and 14th amendments.
Winsor also defended a Florida law mandating a 24-hour waiting period before an abortion could be performed. He argued that, due to the law, “rather than facing a rushed decision in the presence of a provider standing ready to abort the pregnancy immediately … a woman has an opportunity to consider her decision in private, away from the potentially coercive environment of a clinic.”
Asked at his confirmation hearing what evidence supported his assertion about the “coercive environment” of an abortion clinic, he acknowledged that “there was not an evidentiary record developed on that assertion.”
In his Disney ruling, Winsor found that Disney had no grounds to challenge the state law as motivated by an attack on free speech because the state law was “facially constitutional.” He asserted that the law dissolving Reedy Creek doesn’t “explicitly” single out Disney or Reedy Creek as its targets; even though Disney cited “the clear, consistent, and proud declarations” of legislative leaders that their goal was to punish the company, that wasn’t enough, he ruled, to prove their motivations were “constitutionally impermissible.”
The law, Winsor wrote, citing an earlier judicial ruling, “is not pinpointed against a named individual or group; it is general in its wording and impact.”
To the layperson, that sounds like Winsor has failed to notice what is near at hand, which is the essential element of farce, and in this case amounts to the triumphalist boasting by legislators and DeSantis that they scored a direct hit on Disney as a political adversary.
From Disney’s standpoint, the unfortunate irony is that its lawsuit was originally assigned to an Obama appointee on the federal bench in Florida who had ruled against DeSantis in other matters, but he recused himself on the grounds that he owned some Disney stock. The wheel turned and Winsor inherited the case.
It’s been said that bad cases make bad law, but so can bad luck. DeSantis has won this first skirmish against Disney, but where things go from here is anyone’s guess.
Dear Mr. Pelley:
I meant what I said in my letter last week to the 60 Minutes team: joining 60 Minutes is the honor of my career and I am grateful to be working alongside the people who have contributed to the most important television journalism brand this country has ever produced. While I’m new to 60 Minutes, I’ve devoted my career to investigative journalism and storytelling. I started this job excited to collaborate and to benefit from the wisdom and experience of the 60 Minutes veterans, with you among them. For that reason, one of the first things I did in my new role was call you to talk and invite you to dinner. It is a profound disappointment that you rejected that overture and chose ambush instead. Yesterday, you hijacked my first meeting with staff to disparage me, my qualifications, and my intentions with remarkable incivility and contempt. I welcome a diversity of viewpoints and respectful debate among the team, but this was nothing of the sort. Yesterday’s performative display of hostility enacted in front of the staff instead of in a civil, private conversation-demonstrated that you have no interest in contributing to the future success of the show, or approaching my new tenure with a mind open to collaboration and progress. I am here to deliver first-in-class news programming, not to make headlines about newsroom drama. I am eager to work alongside those who share this goal.
Despite yesterday’s misconduct, I had hoped that in sitting down with you today we could find a path forward together. You made clear that you are not interested in such a path.
Your antipathy to the future of the show has come through loud and clear. And I have heard you. I therefore write on behalf of CBS News, Inc. (“CBS”) to inform you that your employment with CBS is terminated for cause effective immediately. Enclosed is your formal termination letter.
Sincerely,
Nick Bilton
Executive Producer, 60 Minutes
The co-founder of Aspiration, Joseph Sanberg, was sentenced to 14 years in prison on Monday after defrauding investors and lenders of over $248 million.
The startup, an eco-friendly digital banking company boasting fossil fuel-free investments, carbon offsets for gas purchases, and a debit card with cash-back benefits for shopping at clean companies, was founded by Sanberg and Andrei Cherny. Cherny left the company in 2022 and has not been charged.
Sanberg, an Orange County native, pleaded guilty to wire fraud in October after being arrested in March last year. Aspiration subsequently filed for bankruptcy and liquidated all of its assets by July.
Sanberg and venture capitalist Ibrahim AlHusseini, who also faces charges, together forged a series of bank statements in order to obtain loans. From 2020 to 2021, the pair forged AlHusseini’s bank statements to show millions of dollars in assets in order to obtain millions of dollars from lenders.
Additionally, they forged a letter from their audit committee stating that $250 million in funds were available, when in reality Aspiration had less than $1 million. The amount of loans defrauded exceeded $248 million.
In 2021, Sanberg artificially inflated Aspiration’s 2021 revenue by $44 million by recruiting 27 fake customers to sign letters of intent pledging tens of thousands of dollars per month for tree planting services. Sanberg himself funded the contracts and used the inflated revenue numbers to obtain more loans.
The charges sparked an NBA investigation into salary cap allegations due to Aspiration’s connections with Clippers owner Steve Ballmer.
Ballmer personally invested $60 million in Aspiration, all of which was lost. He is now the target of a civil lawsuit alleging his participation in the scheme. Ballmer denies the allegations.
The team announced a $300-million sponsorship deal with Aspiration, and Clippers player Kawhi Leonard signed a four-year, $28-million marketing contract with the company, which reportedly performed no duties. The issue has raised concerns about how players are circumventing the NBA’s salary cap.
The team lost the $300-million sponsorship deal and an additional $20 million paid for carbon offset purchases.
Residents in the city of Monterey Park will be the first in the nation to vote on a permanent ban on data centers Tuesday.
If approved, Measure NDC would prohibit data centers within the city limits and could only be overturned by another vote.
Yard signs saying “No Data Center” in English and Chinese with images of dragons line sidewalks in the San Gabriel Valley city.
As a wave of data center opposition sweeps the country, numerous towns and counties across the U.S. have instituted temporary moratoria and other restrictions on the facilities. But only a handful have instituted indefinite bans, and just four other towns have sent related matters to the ballot.
Supporters are hoping the vote will set a precedent for the rest of the region, where residents are fighting proposals in Vernon and City of Industry.
“This is about as permanent a ban as we can get,” said Steven Kung, co-founder of the group No Data Center Monterey Park. “Winning Measure NDC would send a huge message to the rest of the San Gabriel Valley about how residents don’t want data centers.”
The ballot measure emerged from the fight against a 247,000-square-foot center proposed in 2024 by the Australian-owned investment firm HMC StratCap for a residential area in Monterey Park.
The facility would have sat less than 500 feet away from the nearest home and used three times the electricity of the 60,000-person, predominantly Asian American city.
While the developer touted the potential for jobs and tax revenue, residents expressed concerns about noise and air pollution, rising electricity rates and a potential to lower property values.
The company pulled its plans in late March following public outcry and a March 4 city council vote to extend a temporary data center moratorium and place a ban on Tuesday’s ballot.
In a letter to the city council, HMC StratCap said it would pursue a different use for the land and would not engage in a ballot measure fight.
The city council later banned data centers indefinitely, the first in California to do so, said Mayor Elizabeth Yang. But she’s still been out campaigning for the measure with all four other council members.
“If a council puts in an ordinance, a future council can reverse it too,” said Yang. “With the ballot measure, unbanning it is a lot harder because you need the entire city to vote on it.”
The measure proposes the ban “to protect air quality, drinking water resources, and public health” and “prevent impacts to electricity and water rates.”
While California places third in the country for existing data centers with about 300 facilities, it hasn’t been a hot spot in the recent AI-driven data center boom. High electricity rates, expensive land and regulatory hurdles mean that fewer, and smaller, facilities are currently planned than in Virginia, Texas, Georgia, Illinois or Arizona.
“Most of California’s data centers are small by today’s standards,” said Shaolei Ren, an engineering professor at UC Riverside who studies how to reduce the environmental impacts of data centers. “Ten years ago, they would be medium-sized, but the power demand for new AI data centers has increased a lot.”
The average operating data center demands 45 megawatts, according to the Washington Post, while the average planned one would draw 430 MW. The one proposed for Monterey Park would have required about 50 MW at peak demand.
As proposals crop up in SoCal, they’re met with fierce opposition. Montebello, El Monte and Baldwin Park have all enacted temporary moratoria, and Alhambra recently banned data centers as part of a zoning code update. City of Industry, Vernon, City of Commerce and Santa Fe Springs are moving in the other direction, trying to court developers and streamline data center approvals. Community groups are fighting that.
Outside the San Gabriel Valley, residents of Coachella and Imperial County are showing up in droves to protest local proposals.
Matthew Shaw, a volunteer with the Coalition for Responsible Data Center Development, who recently published a report on opposition to AI data centers, said a vote to ban them in Monterey Park “would lead to copycats, partially because so many groups are just opposed to any data center development at all.”
While there is no formal opposition to Measure NDC, some building trades like Ironworker Local 433 supported the Monterey Park data center when it was still live before city council. Those in the data center industry are lamenting the state of public opinion.
“These are multi-billion-dollar assets that are built by multi-trillion-dollar companies. These things will get done,” said Mehdi Paryavi, chairman of the International Data Center Authority. “My biggest problem is that our industry does not invest enough in community engagement.”
Paryavi said towns that seek to limit data centers are missing out on thousands of jobs generated by data center construction, operations and customers, as well as faster artificial intelligence speeds and better performance.
Kung said local community organizers are “looking at the empirical evidence” and seeing a ban as a win.
“We’ve never seen a city that embraces a data center and is like, ‘Look how our quality of life has increased, look how all the revenue has gone into citywide improvements,’” he said. “That just doesn’t exist.”
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