{"id":128683,"date":"2026-01-23T03:39:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T03:39:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/128683\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T03:39:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T03:39:07","slug":"floridas-black-democratic-caucus-pushes-back-against-attorney-generals-affirmative-action-opinion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/128683\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida\u2019s Black Democratic Caucus pushes back against attorney general\u2019s affirmative action opinion"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV\/Gray Florida Capital Bureau) &#8211; Florida\u2019s Black Democratic Caucus held a news conference at the Capitol Thursday to push back against Attorney General James Uthmeier\u2019s opinion declaring affirmative action laws unconstitutional.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Uthmeier issued the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.myfloridalegal.com\/sites\/default\/files\/1.19.26-ago.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.myfloridalegal.com\/sites\/default\/files\/1.19.26-ago.pdf\">legal opinion<\/a> on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, concluding that state laws requiring race-based state action are presumptively unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment\u2019s Equal Protection Clause and Article I, section 2, of Florida\u2019s Constitution. He said more than 80 state laws are unconstitutional because they consider race.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | text-center article-text\">More Florida politics:<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The laws cover affirmative action hiring, diversity requirements and minority business programs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Democratic lawmakers said the opinion rolls back civil rights protections that are still needed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cThese laws represent decades of bipartisan policy and carefully tailored programs that, now with the stroke of a pen, are in jeopardy,\u201d said Sen. Darryl Rouson, D-St. Petersburg.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Republican legislators have filed bills supporting Uthmeier\u2019s position. The attorney general\u2019s opinion is not binding, but he won\u2019t defend these laws in court.<\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright |\">Copyright 2026 WCTV. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV\/Gray Florida Capital Bureau) &#8211; Florida\u2019s Black Democratic Caucus held a news conference at the Capitol&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":128684,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[63610,63609,30275,1442,28,2161,4260,99,62773,232,234,233],"class_list":{"0":"post-128683","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tallahassee","8":"tag-affirmative-action","9":"tag-black-caucus","10":"tag-civil-rights","11":"tag-cody-butler","12":"tag-florida","13":"tag-government","14":"tag-james-uthmeier","15":"tag-politics","16":"tag-protections","17":"tag-tallahassee","18":"tag-tallahassee-headlines","19":"tag-tallahassee-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128683"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128683\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/128684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}