Most public officials make it through their careers without being accused of money laundering and wire fraud after diverting money from the Medicaid program into a far-right political campaign. Most of Florida’s elected officials would agree that racism is — at least theoretically — worth fighting with laws banning discrimination.
And most people employed in law enforcement would have trouble defending their anti-crime credentials after they all but forced a get-out-of-jail-soon card for a woman who shot another motorist in the face on Colonial Drive during rush hour.
But James Uthmeier isn’t just anyone. He’s the 38-year-old attorney who spent nearly four years as Gov. Ron DeSantis’ chief of staff and reportedly had a hand in some of the governor’s most odious stunts, including the cruel, expensive flight that took legal asylum-seekers from Texas and dumped them in Martha’s Vineyard.
Last year, DeSantis rewarded him with a plum position that he is uniquely unqualified to fill — the Cabinet-level job of attorney general. Floridians should be asking themselves: How could the governor reward someone who repeatedly exhibits an utter disregard for the law by making that person the state’s acting top legal officer?
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That is a question that demands an answer — particularly since Uthmeier will probably be on the ballot later this year to become Florida’s attorney general for real. That would be a nightmare scenario for Floridians, regardless of their political party: Uthmeier apparently values his own whim above any law, and Floridians are just now coming to understand how capricious he can be.
Orlando area residents were treated to a particularly violent example of that last year, when Uthmeier elbowed his way into a second-degree murder case that resulted from an altercation in downtown Orlando. Despite conflicting eyewitness testimony, Uthmeier declared that the case should be covered by Florida’s Stand Your Ground law. As State Attorney Monique Worrell wrote in an op-ed Sunday, that undermined the prosecutor in charge of the case. In exchange for pleading guilty to aggravated assault, Tina Allgeo was sentenced to 18 months behind bars followed by 10 years’ probation.
There’s no real indication as to why Uthmeier picked this case among hundreds of other shootings last year. That sheer arbitrariness sends a clear message: Lord help Floridians if he is elected, because DeSantis has weakened the court system to the point where many state judges might be unwilling to stand up in defense of Florida’s constitution and laws.. He and Uthmeier have also bullied many lawmakers into submission — including members of their own party.
Laudably, a few have pushed back. One good example is state Rep. Alex Andrade, a Pensacola Republican who has been attempting to expose the inner workings of a plan (apparentlly orchestrated by Uthmeier) to siphon money from a Medicaid settlement into Hope Florida, a nonprofit associated with first lady Casey DeSantis, and then into poliitical funds controlled by Uthmeier that were campaigning against a statewide legalization of marijuana use.
SEIZING POWER
Last week, Floridians got a foretaste of how bad things could really get. On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a holiday set aside to honor one of this nation’s greatest civil-rights heroes, Uthmeier dropped a steaming pile of legal chicanery into the public domain. In a 14-page memorandum, he announced that he would no longer enforce upwards of 40 laws meant to fight racial discrimination across the state. Among the laws he unilaterally declared to be defunct are many that were crafted specifically and strategically to uncover evidence of favoritism on the basis of gender, race, ethnicity, disability or age. In his view, it is wrong for the state to even keep track of whether its hiring practices are discriminatory — or for cities and counties to take steps to ensure that a Caucasian “good old boy” network doesn’t crowd qualified minority- or women-owned businesses out of contention.
To support his sweeping seizure of power, Uthmeier cited a few recent court cases, including one that struck down affirmative-action admissions policies at Harvard University. But his actions range far wider than the issues covered by those cases (and in fact, Florida had already dropped race as a criteria for university admission before the Harvard ruling was handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2024).
At most, Uthmeier should have brought these laws to the attention of state lawmakers, and recommended changes. But until those laws are amended, it is Uthmeier’s clear duty as acting attorney general to defend those laws to the best of his office’s ability. Instead, he’s attempting to seize control of the Legislature’s function. Even worse, he’s issued an open invitation to challenge each of the laws he named in his memo, and possibly others.
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If legislators let him get away with this, they will be issuing Florida’s lawless chief legal officer an open invitation to keep bending the constitution and laws to his own will. And thanks to DeSantis’ steady selection of judges who reflect the same radical views — especially at the Supreme Court level — there’s little hope that courts will push back as Uthmeier grabs more and more power.
Last week’s stunt should send a clear signal to lawmakers of both parties: If they don’t push back now, they risk seeing their own constitutional authority undermined even more than DeSantis and Uthmeier have already engineered.
More than that, Uthmeier’s audacity should serve as a red flag to voters — who are the last real hope for keeping power-mad politicians in check.
The Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Opinion Editor Krys Fluker, Executive Editor Roger Simmons and Viewpoints Editor Jay Reddick. Use insight@orlandosentinel.com to contact us.