the take with rick klein debate this week in the florida legislature might be confusing to anyone familiar with traditional relationships and battle lines in modern politics led by a governor with national ambitions republican after republican has lambasted a business behemoth with more than half a century of history in the state its been left to democrats to defend a giant corporation thats long been central to the sunshine states tourism industry the move is expected to culminate thursday with a vote in the florida house to strip the walt disney co of the special governance structure it has operated under since 1967 disney is the parent company of abc news gov ron desantis move was framed as payback for disneys decision to oppose the new law banning gender identity and sexual orientation from being taught in lower elementary grades but it doesnt stand alone inside a gop whose relationship with big businesses has been rapidly evolving at least since the trump era florida governor ron desantis speaks at the conservative political action conference cpac in orlando florida feb 24 2022 octavio jonesreuters file lawmakers in texas georgia and elsewhere have threatened action against entities including dell technologies cocacola delta american airlines and major league baseball after they took stands against new voting restrictions in addition to taking on disney this week desantis pointed out that florida pension funds hold twitter stock threatening to hold that companys board members accountable over their handling of elon musks takeover proposal its a far cry from the days when thengov rick perry rtexas cheerfully bought radio ads in blue states inviting companies to move to his businessfriendly state some democrats are trying to take advantage of the flipped gop script gov jared polis dcolo tweeted this week that his state would welcome disney and twitter if they feel attacked by floridas authoritarian socialist attacks on the private sector some republicans argue that their hands have been forced by wokeness at big companies that leave them weighing in on issues they know little about still even counterpunching has consequences for how parties define themselves through hotbutton debates and beyond the rundown with averi harper the power of an endorsement from former president donald trump wasnt enough to keep a former trump administration official on the ballot in a tennessee congressional race morgan ortagus who served as a state department spokesperson during the trump presidency was kicked off the gop primary ballot for tennessees 5th congressional district following a vote by the partys executive committee which said ortagus hadnt voted in enough previous state primaries ortagus had only recently moved to the state two other candidates were also disqualified im a bonafide republican by their standards and frankly by any metric ortagus said in a statement blaming establishment republicans for cutting her congressional bid short im further disappointed that the party insiders at the tennessee republican party do not seem to share my commitment to president trumps america first policies as i have said