Now that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has selected Attorney General Ashley Moody to replace Marco Rubio in the Senate, the state soon will need a new chief state legal officer.
That person will be DeSantis’ chief of staff, James Uthmeier, DeSantis said. His appointment, however, will wait until Moody actually takes office in Washington.
Answering questions after a Thursday press conference in Orlando, DeSantis said he expected that move will happen Monday afternoon, or soon after Rubio is confirmed by the Senate as President-elect Donald Trump’s choice to be the next U.S. secretary of state.
Uthmeier became chief of staff after being the governor’s top official attorney, and has been one of the most influential people in state government and DeSantis’ key advisor – after his wife Casey, that is.
Here’s who James Uthmeier is and a breakdown of some of his past jobs:
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Uthmeier was also campaign manager for DeSantis’ unsuccessful bid for president, spearheaded the governor’s efforts to defeat last year’s recreational marijuana and abortion-rights ballot initiatives and masterminded a controversial program to fly migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts, among other things.
Uthmeier got his undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Florida and a law degree from the Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., according to his LinkedIn page. He was a law clerk for the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee and worked for Rubio in Washington.
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He later was an associate at the Jones Day law firm, also in Washington, and then worked at the U.S. Department of Commerce in several roles, including as senior advisor and counsel to then-Secretary Wilbur Ross in the first Trump administration.
Uthmeier moved to Tallahassee in 2019 to become a deputy general counsel for DeSantis, then rose to the top legal spot the next year. He became chief of staff October 2021 when Adrian Lukis left the governor’s office.
His UF alumni page adds that he was the governor’s “Chief Ethics Officer and directed the judicial nominations process.”
At UF, Uthmeier was a student-athlete: He ran varsity track and cross-country. A “2006 Men’s Cross Country Roster” that is still online shows he’s originally from Destin and attended Fort Walton Beach High School, where he belonged to “National Honor Society, Beta and Future Business Leaders of America.”
While in Tallahassee, he’s been an adjunct professor at Florida State University College of Law. He and his wife Jean teach religious education classes at the St. Thomas More Co-Cathedral, a Roman Catholic church near FSU.
And he’s been active in The Federalist Society, the national group that refers to itself as a “conservative and libertarian intellectual network that extends to all levels of the legal community” and is a favorite of DeSantis.
This story contains previously published material. Jim Rosica is a member of the USA TODAY Network-Florida Capital Bureau. He can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on X: @JimRosicaFL.
