Disney rips DeSantis bid to disqualify judge in free speech lawsuit

Disney urged a federal court to reject a request by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to disqualify the judge overseeing the company’s lawsuit accusing the governor and his allies of political retaliation.

Attorneys for DeSantis had argued that Judge Mark Walker should recuse himself from the lawsuit over his comments in two separate cases that referenced the clash between the governor and the entertainment giant.

Disney — which has been feuding with DeSantis since last year, when the company came out against his bill that critics have labeled “Don’t Say Gay” — responded that the defendants’ argument failed to meet the legal standard for disqualification.

“Judges are not prohibited from referring accurately to widely-reported news events during oral arguments, nor must they disqualify themselves if cases related to those events happen to come before them months later,” Disney’s lawyers argued in a court filing Thursday.

“Disqualification is allowed only if the prior comments expose an incapacity on the judge’s part to consider the new case on its own merits,” the lawyers wrote, adding that the judge’s comments in question “come nowhere close to that standard.”

Disney’s lawsuit alleges that DeSantis “orchestrated at every step” a campaign to punish the company for speaking out against a Florida bill limiting classroom discussion of sexual orientation or gender identity. That alleged scheme now threatens the company’s business, Disney alleges.

“The case that we filed last month made our position and the facts very clear,” Disney CEO Bob Iger said during the company’s earnings call earlier this month. “And that’s really that this is about one thing and one thing only and that’s retaliating against us for taking a position about pending legislation.”

The effort to remove Walker as the judge in Disney’s civil case in U.S. District Court in Tallahassee, Florida, came days before DeSantis launched his 2024…