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“It used to be the Florida Supreme Court’s job to decide whether a law is unconstitutional.
But the ‼️unelected man serving as Florida’s attorney general, James Uthmeier, has made that his domain to the detriment of Floridians.
Traditionally, the attorney general’s principal responsibility is to defend the state in civil lawsuits, when a criminal conviction is appealed or if a law is challenged.
But Uthmeier acts as if he has the power to pick and choose which laws he won’t defend if he personally considers them unconstitutional.
That’s like a public defender saying she won’t represent a defendant because she thinks he’s guilty. He’s entitled to a defense regardless.
Uthmeier’s selective enforcement is how he repealed a Florida law against open carrying of firearms — by default.
After an appellate court tossed it, he refused to appeal the deplorable outcome to the Supreme Court. His inaction gave the gun lobby what even a pro-gun Legislature
He also refused to defend Florida’s law against the sale of firearms to people under 21, which had been upheld by two federal courts and is now on appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, which doesn’t seem inclined to hear it.
Uthmeier has also gone out of his way to weaken criminal cases that don’t dovetail with his philosophy, including an Orlando road-rage case where a man was shot to death.
Giving guns to felons
He’s back in court, siding with a Pennsylvania man convicted of a felony for carrying a gun without a license, who was subsequently busted for possessing a gun in Florida. Uthmeier says it’s unconstitutional to deny a gun to a “non-dangerous” felon.
The Florida Prosecuting Attorneys Association, whose stated mission includes “protecting people,” has filed a court brief opposing him.
Uthmeier is the same attorney general who threatens to have the governor remove Orlando-area State Attorney Monique Worrell, a Democrat, for not prosecuting cases his way.
In his latest I-am-the-law crusade, Uthmeier is repudiating one of the most fundamental aspects of our democracy, the separation of church and state.
He issued an opinion saying it’s unconstitutional for Florida to deny college scholarships for study at religious institutions so long as it makes them available at nonsectarian schools. No court case is challenging that, so Uthmeier’s opinion invites one.
This opinion is a direct attack on Florida’s constitutional provision against spending public money “directly or indirectly in aid of any church, sect, or religious denomination or in aid of any sectarian institution.” It’s an endorsement of state-funded religious schools.
The Legislature has circumvented the ban by making K-12 vouchers available to students instead of funding private schools directly.
Uthmeier cites U.S. Supreme Court precedents saying states can’t discriminate against religious schools in certain ways. But he would take that much further by legalizing direct aid to religious charter schools (there are none now).
He’s attacking the other relevant First Amendment language, the establishment clause, which forbids the government from sponsoring any religion.
His opinion is a full-throated screed for Christian nationalism.
The proper question is the role of religion in government, not in society.
The First Amendment requires government to be neutral on matters of religion, neither endorsing nor opposing.
Upending a delicate balance
Our original Constitution refers to religion only in forbidding any religious test to hold public office. A 1796 treaty with Tripoli declared that the U.S. government “is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.”
But in Uthmeier’s view, “properly understood, the Religion Clauses work together to ensure people can live out their religious obligations to God.”
An AG who cannot conscientiously defend a law owes his clients — the people of Florida — the duty of allowing a surrogate to do it.
✅If not, the people of Florida need a new attorney general.
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