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The Contractual Impossibility of Unwinding Disney’s Reedy Creek

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Re: The Contractual Impossibility of Unwinding Disney’s Reedy Creek

#101

Post by bloak »

twic wrote: post #33
michaelt wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Isn't it some core legal principle that legislature can't do that, and always has the power to reverse itself? The problem with having supreme power to break any contract without consequences is that nobody will make contracts with you any more. For this reason, many states have (e.g.) clauses in their constitutions saying they won't. Of course, the legislature usually has the power to amend the constitution.

I'm moderately sure that the UK government has that power; we have no equivalent of the contract clause here. People still make contracts with the UK government.

Yes, that's right, I think. In the UK we have parliamentary sovereignty. As I understand it, no law and no court can stop Parliament from doing what it wants to do because every UK law can be amended by Parliament and every court merely applies those laws. (Courts may also apply international laws in some cases but the UK laws take priority and could override any foreign law.)

The UK's Constitution is utterly terrible. In many places if you tried to implement something similar it would probably self-destruct very quickly. The UK manages to keep going with it (not brilliantly, but society hasn't completely collapsed yet) only because there is a strong democratic culture. That's my theory, anyway.

Re: The Contractual Impossibility of Unwinding Disney’s Reedy Creek

#102

Post by JaimeThompson »

mbg721 wrote: post #99
JaimeThompson wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Teaching happens the entire time kids are at school even when just talking to their teachers so a teacher mentioning their family, their kids, their spouse, changing their last name because they got married, changing from Miss to Mrs, wearing a wedding ring are all expressions of human sexuality. Sexuality \Sex`u al"i ty\, n. The quality or state of being distinguished by sex. --Lindley. [1913 Webster] They wrote the…

Teaching happens in every interaction a child has in life. If the purpose of schools is to undo the instillment of parents' values (or lack of them), we should at least be honest about it. That's the assumption behind most debates of this type. If the purpose of schools is to teach specialized skills that most parents don't have, then we should cut the crap so that kids can learn them. If the purpose of schools is to…

>Teaching happens in every interaction a child has in life.

Which means that having a law that says teaching human sexuality can't happen is impossible to do without turning the teachers into uncaring robot like beings.

They could have banned the teaching of sexually explicate material but they chose not to.

Re: The Contractual Impossibility of Unwinding Disney’s Reedy Creek

#103

Post by throwaway14857 »

imperio59 wrote: post #24
mikeryan wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not exactly it. Disney publicly criticized the new Florida “Don’t say gay” bill. And then said they’d no longer donate to FL legislature. They’d made a 50k donation to governor DeSantis in the past so it’s more about them NOT making donations. This act by Disney had to be public or it wouldn’t have had any weight. Making those donations privately probably would defeat the purpose of showing support to the legi…

Willing to bet you didn't read what the actual bill says or does. It does not say "don't say gay", it says sexual education to kids should not happen before a certain grade (3rd grade IIRC) and be age appropriate, which should be non controversial unless you have some weird notion that a 7 year old needs to be taught about sex.

The part of the law that people refers to as “Don’t say gay” goes as is:

Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.

Whether this can be reasonably interpreted as “don’t say gay” is an exercise left to the reader

Re: The Contractual Impossibility of Unwinding Disney’s Reedy Creek

#104

Post by chemeng »

hermannj314 wrote: post #4

It would be a shame if current legislators could restrict future legislators by adding infinite year bonds to all new laws with promises the law will never change as long as that bond exists. If this principal of preserving bond contracts prohibits legistivative action or could even have a chilling effect on it, perhaps the real issue is that government debt generally is a risk to our democracy. Perhaps congresses sh…

In this case, congress is not limited. There is a clear way out, the state buys out the bond holders and eliminates the debt. They just can’t dissolve the district without addressing the debt. The cost to do this is said to be 1B. And given the many more billions Disney has poured into the infrastructure and the fact it will continue to use the municipal utilities providing a cash stream, it doesn’t seem unrealistic or unfair to me. (Not to mention the massive tourism benefit this deal has provided to the state)

The issue seems to be that there is not enough political will to use 1B of Florida’s budget to make this happen, not that there is any prohibition on them doing so.

Re: The Contractual Impossibility of Unwinding Disney’s Reedy Creek

#105

Post by zmgsabst »

JaimeThompson wrote: post #91
zmgsabst wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe that you’re ignoring the role of state and national educational agencies and groups in the dynamic. It absolutely is not the case educational material decisions are a purely local choice as the “status quo”.

If the local area has a subpopulation with enough political power to ban the teachings of things they don't like, such as basic science, should they be allowed to do that given the harm it will cause the kids and society?

Yes — I believe in democratic societies where if a majority feels something is dangerous, they have a right to make policy around that issue.

I also believe in constitutional republics where we have overriding laws which protect minorities — but that doesn’t apply in this case, as there isn’t an inherent right to discuss sex with other people’s young children.

Re: The Contractual Impossibility of Unwinding Disney’s Reedy Creek

#106

Post by GCA10 »

We're told at the end of the piece that the author "is an attorney based out of Maitland, Fla., with a practice concentrating on local government-related matters."

It would be nice to know if he's represented either Disney, the state of Florida or a relevant Florida county at any particular time. (Or all the time!) Being a paid advocate for one of the players doesn't disqualify him from talking. In fact, it might make his assessment even more valuable. But I do wish BloombergTax had offered a more informative ID.

Re: The Contractual Impossibility of Unwinding Disney’s Reedy Creek

#107

Post by dave5104 »

mikestew wrote: post #29
imperio59 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Willing to bet you didn't read what the actual bill says or does. It does not say "don't say gay", it says sexual education to kids should not happen before a certain grade (3rd grade IIRC) and be age appropriate, which should be non controversial unless you have some weird notion that a 7 year old needs to be taught about sex.

Willing to bet you didn't read what the actual bill says or does. Ah, yes, the new talking point that I’ve seen a lot of lately: “I’ll bet you haven’t even read it. Here, let me…” Yeah, save your patronizing, I read it just fine. And my take-away was, “don’t say gay” is about as accurate a summary as one is likely to get. Sure, those are exact words aren’t in there, but man, is that ever a weak rebuttal.

And to your point, the exact text is:

> Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.

Discussions on gender identity and sexual orientation are the only topics outlined as not allowed.

Actual sex education (whether it's the act itself, topics on puberty, etc.) seems to still be on the table.

https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2022/1557/?Tab=BillTex...

Re: The Contractual Impossibility of Unwinding Disney’s Reedy Creek

#108

Post by Tossrock »

innocentoldguy wrote: post #57
mikestew wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Willing to bet you didn't read what the actual bill says or does. Ah, yes, the new talking point that I’ve seen a lot of lately: “I’ll bet you haven’t even read it. Here, let me…” Yeah, save your patronizing, I read it just fine. And my take-away was, “don’t say gay” is about as accurate a summary as one is likely to get. Sure, those are exact words aren’t in there, but man, is that ever a weak rebuttal.

I've read the bill as well and I think the clear take-away is Florida doesn't want teachers talking to five-year-olds about sex, period. No sexual preferences are specified in the bill, whatsoever.

As ammending 1001.42 §8, Paragragh (c)3: "Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards."

This seems to pretty straightforwardly say that schools can't talk about the existence of gay or transgender people in K-3, or ever if it's not "age appropriate or developmentally appropriate"... according to standards that the state gets to set.

Re: The Contractual Impossibility of Unwinding Disney’s Reedy Creek

#109

Post by InitialLastName »

zmgsabst wrote: post #55
InitialLastName wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there no distinction between teaching children about "sex" and teaching children about families and relationships? Because a casual reading of the bill certainly appears to threaten the latter, where the "this is reasonable" proponents seem to be pushing for the former interpretation. Classic "disingenuous use of partisanship to talk past each other", but it's funny how the ostensibly "limited government" people a…

This rule is addressing other actions by government, such as the choice of government funded schools to adopt an ideology that a majority views as dangerous to their children — and represents a limit on government power. Why would this constitute overreach?

If the rule is meant to address actions by state government agencies and educational organizations (as your other comment implies), why is the execution of the bill only actionable at and/or below the school district level?

Re: The Contractual Impossibility of Unwinding Disney’s Reedy Creek

#110

Post by JaimeThompson »

zmgsabst wrote: post #105
JaimeThompson wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the local area has a subpopulation with enough political power to ban the teachings of things they don't like, such as basic science, should they be allowed to do that given the harm it will cause the kids and society?

Yes — I believe in democratic societies where if a majority feels something is dangerous, they have a right to make policy around that issue. I also believe in constitutional republics where we have overriding laws which protect minorities — but that doesn’t apply in this case, as there isn’t an inherent right to discuss sex with other people’s young children.

>I believe in democratic societies where if a majority feels something is dangerous, they have a right to make policy around that issue.

So it would be acceptable for those same religious people to stop females from getting the same sort of education males receive? The damage done to others by such actions has to be taken into account.

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