A public feud brewing between Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and his Colorado counterpart Gov. Jared Polis could be used by the latter to cement the Centennial State as the country’s anti-Florida stronghold.
The Florida Republican has leveled criticism and threats of retaliation against Disney and Twitter in recent weeks, prompting Polis to invite the two companies to relocate their headquarters to Colorado in the wake of DeSantis’s feud with the House of Mouse.
“Florida’s authoritarian socialist attacks on the private sector are driving businesses away,” Polis said in a tweet earlier this week. “In [Colorado], we don’t meddle in affairs of companies like @Disney or @Twitter. Hey @Disney we’re ready for Mountain Disneyland and @twitter we’re ready for Twitter HQ2, whoever your owners are.”
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The Florida governor’s office told the Washington Examiner it considered the proposal to be odd, as Twitter and Disney are both headquartered in California, but declined to comment further.
The criticism from Polis could be an attempt to position Colorado as Florida’s political antidote — appealing to progressive voters and businesses in the meantime.
“I think picking a fight with Florida is good politics from Colorado,” Democratic political strategist Brad Bannon told the Washington Examiner. “I think there are some businesses out there who are deciding whether they’re going to move from California to somewhere else — they are more likely to move to a state like Colorado, where they’re not going to get caught up in right-wing social politics that they would be in Florida.”
Once considered a swing state, Colorado is now deep blue after becoming the first, alongside Washington, to legalize marijuana for recreational use in 2012.
Most recently, Polis signed a bill in early April codifying the right to an abortion at any point during pregnancy, joining 15 other states with similar legislation aimed at protecting reproductive rights as conservatives in other states seek to restrict access.
Polis’s moves leftward coincide with DeSantis’s shift in the other direction — although with seemingly different end goals in mind. While DeSantis has fueled rumors he plans to seek a presidential bid in 2024, Polis has said he has “no desire” to occupy the White House.
“What Polis is doing fits in with the image the state wants to project to the nation,” Bannon said. “It’s young, environmental, it’s friendly to gay populations. It sets the image they want to set nationally, which is attracting young, economically mobile residents who are progressive, especially on social issues. DeSantis is placing a bet that right-wing politics that he is able to espouse in Florida will play nationally, and I’m not sure that’s the case.”
However, critics have viewed Polis’s actions as empty gestures that, if panned out, would be unsuccessful.
“This is really, really shallow,” said Bob Beauprez, a former Republican congressman who represented Colorado’s 7th Congressional District from 2003 to 2007. “The governor is up for reelection … and he loves getting the national headline, which he’s gotten again, and pretending [he’s] somehow down the middle of the road [and] can bring people together.”
Even if Polis was offering a realistic proposal to move big companies such as Disney and Twitter to Colorado, it’s unlikely big-name businesses would want to wade into the Rocky Mountain state, Beauprez said.
“If Disney did come here and want to stake a claim for a 40-square-mile piece of ground, [Colorado] would put so many restrictions on them and be concerned about contamination of the environment by the lights and noise and other pollutions, they’d quickly drive Disney back to the friendly confines of Florida,” he said. “It’s just wacky, the longer you think about it.”
Still, the dispute highlights the juxtaposition of the two states.
Polis denounced DeSantis after he sought to punish Disney for publicly opposing his Parental Rights in Education Act, dubbed by critics the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, and called for its repeal. The Republican governor urged state lawmakers to consider removing the special district that grants Disney World self-governance, arguing it gives the company advantages other businesses don’t have. Florida lawmakers passed a bill this week that would revoke Disney’s special status, and it now heads to DeSantis’s desk for his signature.
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“Special districts could in some instances show favoritism,” the governor’s office told the Washington Examiner. “Should a corporation be serving as a regulator and a business at the same time? Should a corporation get to avoid standard environmental permitting processes? Should a corporation engage in eminent domain? Other businesses don’t get these privileges.”
Polis did not respond to a request for comment by the Washington Examiner.
