In a cavernous Ybor City dining hall, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier stood before a bipartisan crowd Friday and faced a battery of critical questions — about the Hope Florida scandal, about his hefty university teaching salary, about his position on to LGBTQ+ rights.
“I believe in the rule of law,” he said. “My job is to enforce the law.”
Uthmeier, who is running to keep the office to which he was appointed last year, was the featured speaker in a lunchtime meeting of the Tampa Tiger Bay Club.
The gathering of civic leaders, politicians and politicos grilled the state’s chief legal officer on a range of controversies.
After Uthmeier spoke about how much he admires police, vowed to prosecute the state’s many child predators, voiced concern over artificial intelligence and deadly illegal drugs and scammers who target seniors, there came the first of many questions.
The questioner alluded to a list of laws Uthmeier’s office released in January that he called “discriminatory” and said he would not enforce because they mention race. They included laws designed to help minority-owned businesses, minority physicians and student scholarships.
Given that Uthmeier has said he will not enforce such laws, the man asked, should he not be suspended from office like Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew Warren was?
The inquiry drew a mixture of boos and applause.
Uthmeier said state attorneys like Warren and Monique Worrell in Orlando were “picking and choosing” which laws to enforce based on “policy preferences.”
He said he took an oath to uphold the Constitution and asserted that he cannot defend laws that contradict it.
Another attendee mentioned Uthmeier’s involvement in what’s become known as the Hope Florida scandal. A state grand jury last year is widely believed to have heard evidence related to the transfer of federal Medicaid funds to a political committee headed by Uthmeier, which aimed to defeat a proposed constitutional amendment that would have legalized recreational marijuana use.
The grand jury’s findings have so far not been released. Uthmeier was asked: If he’s done nothing wrong, why not call for any report to be released?
“This has been a politically motivated media-driven farce,” he said. He stressed that under Florida law, grand jury proceedings are secret, and he therefore couldn’t talk about it. He insisted that no one involved in the Hope Florida matter did anything wrong. The marijuana amendment, he said, would have endangered public safety.
If Uthmeier respects law enforcement, another attendee asked, why would he “bully” local leaders into cooperating with “untrained, undisciplined ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) thugs?”
“You say I’m bullying,” Uthmeier said. “I would say what I’m doing is enforcing the law.”
He went on to say that state law requires all government officials to cooperate with federal agents. He tied the immigration issue to efforts to round up child predators. Every time law enforcement officials conduct an operation to go after such people, he said, many of those arrested turn out to be immigrants without permanent legal status.
He added that there is a “disproportionately high level of crime coming over the southern border.”
“We can’t have illegal aliens here molesting our children,” he said.
One person, who won an award from the Tiger Bay Club for asking the best question, queried Uthmeier about how many Florida felons have had their voting rights restored. She added: “What was the process that President (Donald) Trump went through to have his rights restored after his conviction?”
Her inquiry drew applause.
Uthmeier talked about the state’s clemency process, then segued into his support for allowing felons convicted of nondangerous crimes to possess guns. A lot of prosecutors disagree with his position, he said.
“But I’m bound by the Constitution,” he said. ”I think true constitutionalists, they stand by the principles, they stand by the Constitution even when it’s going to create some discomfort.”
But what about the Trump question? He was asked.
“I’m not going to get into the sham proceedings against President Trump,” he said.
More jeers followed.
Later in the 40-minute program, a man asked how Uthmeier reconciled his belief in protecting children with what was described as his “hostility” toward LGBTQ+ youth.
Uthmeier said he believes in parents’ rights to raise their children how they see fit without the government telling them what to do.
“But at the end of the day,” Uthmeier said, “we have to protect the physical safety and well-being of our kids. And so while I respect the LGBT community, this effort to trans and mutilate children has got to stop.”
The remark drew groans and boos from some in the crowd as Uthmeier continued speaking. He said he’s gone after medical providers who encourage gender-affirming treatment for minors.
“You know, I’ve got a 6-year-old girl, and she’s a tomboy already,” he said. “She wants to dress like her brother, she wants to run out and kick the soccer ball. She’s not in public school, but I would worry if she was, that somebody might say, you can be a man if you want to be. So we’ve got to be common sensible here. We cannot be mutilating and trying to trans our children.”
He went on to talk about removing “pornography” from school libraries and bringing legal action against school administrators who want to expose kids to smut.
“We have to shut it down,” he said. “And that is not going to change.”
A final question concerned Uthmeier’s $100,000 salary for a part-time teaching gig at the University of Florida, an amount astronomically higher than most adjunct professors make. Why not teach without an additional salary? Or why not lobby the Legislature to increase the $140,000 he already makes as attorney general?
Uthmeier said he always wanted to teach law and government and the university asked him to do it. The media, he said, hasn’t talked about how one of the solicitors general in his office makes an even higher salary for teaching at Florida State University. Other state agency heads are also paid faculty, he said.
“It’s a ton of work, but I love the students,” he said. ”I wanted to give back to them.”
Uthmeier, who previously served as the chief of staff to Gov. Ron DeSantis, was appointed by the governor a year ago to replace Ashley Moody, who left to fill Florida’s U.S. Senate vacancy. In his campaign to keep the office, Uthmeier has raised more than $8 million, far more than any of his opponents.
