TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – After Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier announced this week that his office would no longer enforce over 80 race-based laws, several Black Democratic lawmakers in Florida planned to host a news conference in response.
During the conference on Thursday afternoon, the lawmakers decried Uthmeier’s opinion, saying that it would undo decades of “protection” for Black Florida residents and ignore Florida’s history of racial discrimination.
“Civil rights laws are protections against discrimination, not preferences. This is about leveling the playing field, making sure that Floridians who look like us and Floridians who look like the attorney general have the same opportunities,” said state Rep. Fentrice Driskell (D-Tampa).
In fact, one lawmaker even said he would support Uthmeier’s removal from office after the opinion was released, saying that the attorney general is obligated to enforce all state laws.
“If the attorney general does not want to follow the laws that we’ve passed, I’m declaring that I think the governor should remove him today,” said state Sen. Mack Bernard (D-West Palm Beach).
Meanwhile, Uthmeier made his announcement via an opinion published earlier this week, which lists out the laws that mandate discrimination based on race.
“Racial discrimination is wrong. It is also unconstitutional,” he writes. “Yet Florida maintains several laws on its books that promote and require discrimination on its face.”
The laws discussed in Uthmeier’s opinion are listed out below:
Uthmeier cited the 14th Amendment and Florida’s constitution, explaining that citizens are supposed to be treated as individuals and protected from racial discrimination by the government.
“For government officials, the path forward is simple,” he says. “’The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.’”
The attorney general also pointed to a 2022 Supreme Court case in which Harvard College’s race-based admissions procedures were found to have violated the Equal Protection Clause of the federal Civil Rights Act.
“The Court further explained that ‘[a]ny exception to the Constitution’s demand for equal protection must survive a daunting two-step examination known... as strict scrutiny,’” Uthmeier adds.
[BELOW: Florida AG James Uthmeier holds Orlando news conference on protecting women’s sports]
As Uthmeier tells it, any sort of race-based state action must be used to “further compelling governmental interests” and remain “narrowly tailored” as necessary to achieve those interests.
Furthermore, the U.S. Supreme Court has identified only two compelling interests that permit race-based state action:
- Remediating specific, identified instances of past discrimination that violated the Constitution or a statute
- Avoiding imminent and serious risks to human safety in prisons, such as a race riot
As such, Uthmeier argues, race-based state actions like those in the statutes above must be limited in duration, as “all governmental use of race must have a logical end point.”
“None of these laws withstands strict scrutiny.
First, these laws do not further a compelling governmental interest because none of these laws identifies any of the limited, recognized constitutional justifications for race-based classifications - namely remedying specific instances of past discrimination or avoiding imminent and serious risks to human safety.
These laws further fail strict scrutiny because none are limited in duration and because they preclude race-neutral alternatives."
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier
One of the most “egregious” examples of racial discrimination that Uthmeier pointed out was a statewide affirmative action mandate for Florida executive agencies.
Under this law, executive agencies must develop affirmative action plans to ensure “full utilization” of groups like women, minorities and disabled people.
Furthermore, Uthmeier discussed race-based preferences in government contracting, calling out a statute that provides the following “spending goals” for minority state contractors:
- For construction contracts: 4% for Black Americans, 6% for Hispanic Americans, and 11% for American women
- For architectural/engineering contracts: 9% for Hispanic Americans, 1% for Asian Americans, and 15% for American women
- For commodities: 2% for Black Americans, 4% for Hispanic Americans, 0.5% for Asian Americans, 0.5% for Native Americans, and 17% for American women
- For contractual services: 6% for Black Americans, 7% for Hispanic Americans, 1% for Asian Americans, 0.5% for Native Americans, and 36% for American women
Thus, Uthmeier announced that his office finds the listed laws must be unconstitutional.
“My office, therefore, will not defend or enforce any of these discriminatory provisions,” he concludes.
You can read Attorney General Uthmeier’s full opinion below.