South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)
Disney fighting for public records in battle with DeSantis
As Disney tries to rebound from a major legal setback, the entertainment giant is battling Gov. Ron DeSantis and state officials on another front: access to public records.
The corporation’s lawyers are demanding text messages, emails and documents related to the DeSantis-led effort to overhaul the special district providing government services to Disney World.
Disney’s lawyers are accusing the governor’s office of engaging in “obstructionist conduct” and stonewalling them on “good-faith” efforts to obtain documents relevant to their legal dispute.
“At every turn, EOG [executive office of the governor] has responded to those efforts with gamesmanship designed to delay and obfuscate the discovery process,” Disney’s lawyers wrote in a court filing.
DeSantis won a significant victory Wednesday when a judge dismissed Disney’s federal lawsuit accusing the governor and state officials of political retaliation. Disney is appealing that decision. The corporation is also defending itself in a lawsuit filed in state court by the DeSantis-backed Central Florida Tourism Oversight District over development agreements.
As part of their investigation, Disney’s lawyers filed a third lawsuit against the tourism oversight district. They accuse that agency of breaking the state’s public records and potentially withholding work-related communications on the personal phones of the district’s employees and board members.
The suit blasts the district’s recordkeeping, alleging officials allow board members and employees to use personal devices for government business with no detailed protocol for archiving those messages for public inspection. Employees and board members are left to “self-select”
which messages they provide in response to public records requests, the suit alleges.
Disney does want to keep some of the documents it produces through discovery secret. The corporation entered an unopposed motion on Thursday asking to keep confidential company documents that contain sensitive information, such as trade secrets or nonpublic financial data.
The Central Florida Tourism Oversight District disputes Disney’s allegations and “follows government norms for operations and staffing levels” in handling public records requests, agency spokesman Alexei Woltornist said in a statement.
“This wild goose chase lawsuit was filed because Disney does not like that the furnished public records do not support its claims in other legal cases,” he said. “Perhaps most distasteful in this whole crusade on this matter is the willingness to smear civil servants, who have faithfully fulfilled public records requests for years. The district’s civil service employees have done an exceptional job fulfilling requests in accordance with the law.”
A judge has set a June 24 trial date for the public records dispute.
The DeSantis-Disney feud started in 2022 over the corporation’s opposition to a law limiting classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity. Disney maintains it was unfairly punished because it spoke out about what critics called the “don’t say gay” law.
Disney’s issue with obtaining public records isn’t unique, said Michael Barfield, public access director for the Florida Center for Government Accountability. Historically, Florida has been viewed as having some of the strongest open government laws in the country, but Barfield said DeSantis and the Legislature have created a new era of secrecy and obstruction.
“It’s just dark times in Florida,” said Barfield, whose group has clashed with state
officials in court over public records disputes. “I don’t think we should be calling ourselves the Sunshine State.”
Barfield’s open government group has fielded a multitude of complaints that he says have grown worse under DeSantis’ leadership: inflated fees for producing records that can cost thousands of dollars, wait times that can go on for months, and additional legal reviews by the governor’s staffers of state records that could contain embarrassing or politically damaging information.
A governor’s spokesman did not return a message seeking comment about those issues.
Some public records requests filed by the Orlando Sentinel with the DeSantis-backed tourism oversight district have been pending for three months. Officials have not provided an estimate of when those records, such as documents related to a no-bid contract to upgrade the district’s 911 network, will be available. Meanwhile, the DeSantis-allied Legislature has made more records off limits to the public, including documents related to university presidential searches and the governor’s travel.
The Washington Post is challenging the law shielding the governor’s travel records, arguing in a lawsuit that the exemption is unconstitutional. Republicans said those records needed to be kept confidential to protect the governor’s safety, but Democrats accused DeSantis of wanting to hide the use of state resources to further his presidential ambitions.
The state settled a two-year court battle in October over
COVID-19-related records, agreeing to pay legal fees and make the information public.
Floridians shouldn’t have to hire a lawyer to obtain information that they have a constitutional right to see, said former Democratic Orlando state Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith, who filed the lawsuit.
“[DeSantis] unequivocally has a motive regardless of which case we are talking about,” said Smith, who is now running for state Senate. “His motive is to hide information from the public and obscure what he is really doing from public scrutiny.”
The administration has also faced a lawsuit seeking records related to statefunded flights of migrants to Massachusetts.
DeSantis’ lawyers have fired back with a strategy that legal experts say breaks with his predecessors. His legal team has invoked executive privilege to shield the governor’s office from “inquiries into consultations, directions or discussions among its high-ranking officials or with other executive branch agencies.”
Executive privilege isn’t defined in the Florida constitution or state law, but it has historically been wielded by the president of the United States. Open government advocates say the concept is at odds with Florida’s public records laws.
“Our Founding Fathers believed information is vital to a healthy democracy — to be able to know what the government is up to, to ask questions, to disagree,” Barfield said. “Accurate information is critical to a citizen making an informed decision about who they are going to vote into office.”