Attorney General James Uthmeier has focused on various issues in Jacksonville since being tapped for the job last year.
But if Democrat José Javier Rodríguez is elected to replace the former Ron DeSantis staffer, he says he will respect “home rule” and Jacksonville’s ability to govern itself without interference from the state’s chief legal officer that has surfaced regarding a log book of gun owners entering city buildings and JEA’s decision to part ways with Ballard Partners.
“My opponent has been trying to apply power. So that’s what’s called bullying. So, he does not have the law to back him up in almost any circumstance where I’ve seen where he goes on social media and puts out some tough sounding letter, but is not very clear on exactly what the Attorney General’s role is,” the former state Representative, state Senator, and Assistant Secretary of Labor for Employment and Training of the United States said Thursday.
“Everything is hyperpartisan, hyperpolitical, and it’s just not appropriate,” Rodríguez added.
Regarding the gun registry, Rodríguez said Uthmeier was invoking a “remedial statute” that allows for the destruction of records.
Uthmeier is suing the city for $5 million, the maximum penalty under state law, saying the city willfully kept a so-called “illegal gun registry.”
Rodríguez notes that State Attorney Melissa Nelson absolved Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan’s office of criminal liability, having “determined that it was not intentional, that was a mistake.”
Regarding the JEA probe, Rodríguez suggested Uthmeier was doing Ballard a favor.
“From the outside, it looks like he’s doing that almost like on behalf of this lobbying firm. It’s well connected in Tallahassee. That’s just what it looks like, but big question as to why the people of Florida are interested in this dispute. It’s not clear to me,” he said Thursday on WJCT’s “First Coast Connect.”
Uthmeier has requested records from Deegan and key staffer Mike Weinstein in which they discuss the arrangement between the city’s independent utility and the lobbying firm that employs former Mayor Lenny Curry and Chief of Staff Jordan Elsbury. Deegan has framed the probe as one of many “attacks” on the city’s “consolidated government,” driven by “hyperpartisanship.”
