{"id":5984,"date":"2026-06-30T17:04:23","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T17:04:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/orlandorelocationreport.com\/?p=5984"},"modified":"2026-06-30T17:04:23","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T17:04:23","slug":"editorial-bullying-local-leaders-while-worshipping-guns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orlandorelocationreport.com\/?p=5984","title":{"rendered":"Editorial: Bullying local leaders while worshipping guns"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Elections for the vital office of Florida attorney general are often obscured by marquee races for governor and U.S. Senate.<\/p>\n

Read more Hurricane center keeps track of Atlantic system off US coast<\/a><\/p>\n

But this year\u2019s contest deserves much more attention. It\u2019s a pivotal moment for our state, because Florida has a renegade attorney general who won\u2019t follow the law.<\/p>\n

Republican James Uthmeier, appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, is running to be elected on his own in November. Before his appointment, he was the governor\u2019s chief of staff and general counsel. Many of the governor\u2019s more ridiculous stunts have his fingerprints all over them.<\/p>\n

After his appointment, he refused to defend Florida\u2019s gun control laws in court or appoint anyone else to do so, which invited the court to overturn them. That\u2019s how he made Florida an open carry state, despite the Legislature\u2019s refusal to allow it for 18-year-olds.<\/p>\n

He recently sided with the NRA and other grateful challengers in a lawsuit to overturn the three-day waiting period to buy a handgun that an astounding 85% of voters put in the Constitution in 1990. Extended to rifles and shotguns after the 2018 Parkland shooting, it was supported by Republicans and signed by former Gov. Rick Scott. But Uthmeier sided with the gun lobby.<\/p>\n

And he\u2019s issued veiled threats against city and county leaders \u2014 including repeatedly second-guessing prosecutorial decisions by 9th Circuit State Attorney Monique Worrell, whom he seems to be obsessed with, over her science-based handling of local cases. He had heavy involvement in the governor\u2019s decision to suspend Worrell during her first term in office. (She was resoundingly re-elected in 2024.) He also levied the threat of suspension against Tampa Mayor Jane Castor and the entire Orange County Commission for being under-enthusiatic in cooperating with federal immigration policies.<\/p>\n

Remember, nobody has ever elected this guy to anything. Yet he\u2019s grabbing authority from local elected official through threats and bullying \u2014 and usurping his former boss by acting as if the AG\u2019s office has any say in suspensions. Lord help us if he gets the title of attorney general for real.<\/p>\n

Religion and gun worship<\/h4>\n

A core responsibility of the Office of Attorney General is to defend the constitutionality of state laws whether Uthmeier agrees with them or not. His refusal to do so jeopardizes public safety. Rubbing it in, he claims he\u2019s defending \u201cGod-given rights.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

We need to know that Uthmeier is reliably fighting for us. He\u2019s not.<\/p>\n

He was out of bounds again when he declared that school boards have no choice but to release students on parental demand for religious instruction. If that is the law, so be it, but he preached about the \u201csacred duties\u201d of parents to \u201craise their children in the faith.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe LORD \u2014 author of our natural rights and duties \u2014 requires nothing else,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not a legal argument. It\u2019s political rhetoric with a hypocritical gloss of religion. It also raises a question of how Uthmeier passed the Bar without understanding the First Amendment.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

A real choice for voters<\/h4>\n

Uthmeier\u2019s opponent, Democrat Jose Javier Rodriguez of Miami, has the experience and values, although not as much money, to make a fight of this Cabinet race.<\/p>\n

Six years ago, the Democrat lost a state Senate reelection bid by 33 votes when a third candidate, also named Rodriguez, an absentee \u201cghost\u201d candidate to deceive voters, took 6,382 votes that tipped the race to the Republican. Political operatives tied to Florida Power & Light\u2019s parent company were involved in the scandal, and a former Republican state senator was convicted of violating campaign finance laws.<\/p>\n

Read more Central Florida Zoo welcomes two female giraffes<\/a><\/p>\n

Jose Javier Rodriguez, who was a persistent critic of FPL in the Senate, faults Uthmeier for not intervening against the utility\u2019s rate hike, which is being appealed in court after the Public Service Commission approved it. Past holders of the AG\u2019s office have challenged big rate hikes. When FPL proposed a historic $7 billion hike in power bills, Uthemeier was silent.<\/p>\n

Credit for consumerism<\/h4>\n

Uthmeier does deserve credit on other consumer issues, notably involving hospital pricing, artificial intelligence safety and investigating CVS Health over whether its pharmacy benefit manager affiliate harms consumers by improperly favoring CVS drug stores. nTwo years ago, a New York Times investigation found that America\u2019s largest pharmacy benefit managers steer patients to costlier drugs, charge steep markups and extract billions in hidden fees.<\/p>\n

But consumers have yet to see any benefit from his supposed defense of them. Meanwhile, he\u2019s still mucking around with other state agencies \u2014 even where he has an apparent conflict of interest.\u00a0 Uthmeier took the University of Florida\u2019s side in a dispute with the chairman of UF\u2019s board of governors. It left the appearance of a glaring conflict of interest because he has a lucrative $100,000-a-year gig with UF to teach two law courses.<\/p>\n

Two issues rooted in his previous employment as DeSantis\u2019 chief of staff could be major factors.<\/p>\n

Uthmeier staunchly defended the outrageously expensive immigrant prison known as \u201cAlligator Alcatraz,\u201d a swamp of lucrative no-bid contracts. Now that it has closed, he\u2019s calling for it to be protected environmentally.<\/p>\n

A secret grand jury report<\/h4>\n

But the most serious cloud hovering over him is his involvement with $10 million of public money, paid to the state for Medicaid overcharges. The money was diverted to the governor\u2019s wife\u2019s charity, the Hope Florida Foundation, which funneled it to two political committees.<\/p>\n

They then gave nearly all of it to DeSantis\u2019 successful efforts to defeat voter initiatives to protect abortion rights and legalize recreational marijuana. Uthmeier masterminded both.<\/p>\n

He defends how that money was spent but refuses to say whether he has a hand in suppressing any grand jury report on it. The Leon County Grand Jury is known to have looked into it last winter. It did not indict anyone, but is believed to have issued a report, legally known as a presentment, in February. By law, persons criticized in a presentment have a legal right to object to its release.<\/p>\n

Uthmeier spokesman Jeremy Redfern did not respond to a Sun Sentinel email asking whether the attorney general knows about any presentment, whether he\u2019s contesting it, and whether he would consent to its release.<\/p>\n

It could be considered disqualifying for the state\u2019s chief legal officer to suppress any grand jury inquiry into how public money is spent. It\u2019s just one more nagging question about the attorney general who was elected by nobody.<\/p>\n

Just\u00a0 whose side is Uthmeier on, anyway? And how much damage would he do if Floridians gave him legitimacy by giving him full four years in office?<\/p>\n

The Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board includes Executive Editor Roger Simmons, Opinion Editor Krys Fluker and Viewpoints Editor Jay Reddick. The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Executive Editor Gretchen Day-Bryant, Editorial Page Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Editorial Page Editor Dan Sweeney and editorial writers Pat Beall and Martin Dyckman. Send letters to insight@orlandosentinel.com.<\/em><\/p>\n

Read more Orlando Sentinel 150: Our 1976 story of time capsule opened this week<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The editorial boards examine the very troubling record of Florida attorney general James Uthmeier as the 2026 campaign season unfolds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5983,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editorials","category-opinion"],"yoast_head":"\nEditorial: Bullying local leaders while worshipping guns - Orlando Relocation Report<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/orlandorelocationreport.com\/?p=5984\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Editorial: Bullying local leaders while worshipping guns - 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