If you want an Attorney General dedicated to serving polluting industries and other special interests, James Uthmeier is your man.

The state’s top law enforcement officer — the official charged with protecting Floridians from corporate wrongdoing — has never been elected to office; appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis last year, he’s now running for the seat and has amassed an impressive $8.5 million war chest.

But the picture that emerges from Uthmeier’s donor list is of an attorney general whose loyalties lie with the industries and ideologues who bankrolled his rise, not Florida’s residents and environment.

The state’s top law enforcement officer — the official charged with protecting Floridians from corporate wrongdoing — has accepted huge donations from sugar interests that spent decades polluting the Everglades; from a phosphate mining giant shielded from liability by recent legislation; from developers, including one who directly benefited from a Cabinet decision Uthmeier himself voted on; and from a shadowy out-of-state political network intent on reshaping American law from the statehouse up.

The biggest single donor to Uthmeier is the Republican Party of Florida, which has given $1.1 million over the past 13 months.

Beyond that, it’s “dirty money” as far as the eye can see

MORE: See Uthmeier’s donor list

⬛ Start with “Alligator Alcatraz.” Uthmeier is reportedly the brains behind the Everglades detention center, and that’s proven pretty lucrative. Uthmeier’s “Friends of James Uthmeier” political action committee has recorded three donations totaling just under $276,000 from CDR Enterprises — a Miami-based engineering firm that was one of several companies contracted to build Alligator Alcatraz, and one of many vendors that just happened to be donors.

⬛ Speaking of harm to the Everglades, Uthmeier’s PAC in January got $50,000 from the United States Sugar Corporation. “Big Sugar’s” historic pollution of the Everglades has been well-documented and U.S. Sugar, along with Florida Crystals, owns much of the land in the Everglades Agricultural Area south of Lake Okeechobee – including the 8,600-acre parcel where the proposed Southland rock mine may be built.

As one of the most influential special interests in Tallahassee and indeed Washington, D.C., Big Sugar usually gets what Big Sugar wants. And now it looks like they’ll have a friend in Uthmeier.

⬛ One of the largest donations to Uthmeier’s PAC may be the most mysterious. In September the PAC received $325,000 from the First Principles political action committee in Nashville, Tenn. That committee has been linked to Leonard Leo, a conservative legal activist who chairs the board of the Federalist Society and has helped shape the U.S. Supreme Court, leading campaigns to support the nominations of John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett.

Leo is reportedly now directing his considerable fortune to cultivating influence at the state level, via “a national empire of dark money designed to infiltrate statehouses … in a national war to control the law itself.”

By taking this money, Uthmeier effectively confirms he’ll operate as an ideologue — which may explain some of the strange decisions he’s made lately.

⬛ Recent news stories have noted Uthmeier’s donations from Big Tobacco ($100,000 from RAI Services Company of Winston-Salem, N.C.) and gun manufacturer Sig Sauer, which gave $50,000.

⬛ Self-identified real estate developers have given more than $250,000, including a tidy sum from a Louisiana businessman and landowner who received approximately $83 million from the State of Florida for just four acres of land in Destin. The controversial Destin deal was hastily pushed through the Legislature and approved by the Florida Cabinet — a body on which Uthmeier sits — sparking widespread outrage across the state. Critics pointed to the flow of political money as a driving force behind the deal; landowner Robert Guidry has been a generous donor to Florida Republicans, including a $25,000 contribution from his Superior Waterfront Properties LLC to Friends of James Uthmeier in February 2025.

If political donations are calculated to provide a return on investment, Guidry’s ROI was huge — thanks in part to Uthmeier.

⬛ Other special interest donations to Uthmeier include $25,000 from Mosaic Global Sales LLC, the phosphate mining giant. The industry has had more than its share of environmental problems over the years, but Florida legislators nonetheless went to bat for the industry in the recent legislative session, passing HB 167, which limits legal liability for the owners of former phosphate mining lands, including Mosaic.

⬛ Uthmeier’s gotten huge sums from “Polluter PACs,” political action committees that themselves get major donations from polluting industries. For example, the Florida Chamber of Commerce PAC got nearly $6 million of its total $13.1 million in revenue since 2020 from sugar-related sources; that PAC has given just under $182,000 to Friends of James Uthmeier. The Florida PC PAC, a relatively new committee that’s taken in $6.3 million since October 2024, including at least $2 million from developers, $650,000 from Florida Crystals and $150,000 from Mosaic, gave Uthmeier’s PAC just under $250,000.

⬛ And he got another $175,000 from a PAC called “A Stronger Florida,” which is reportedly linked to lobbying firm Rubin Turnbull & Associates.

The pattern of Uthmeier’s fundraising tells a disturbing story. When the state’s chief law enforcement officer — the official with the power to prosecute polluters, investigate corrupt land deals, and challenge legislation that harms the public — is financially beholden to polluters and other special interests, the public has every reason to ask: if James Uthmeier ever has to choose between doing right by the public and doing right by his donors, which way will he go?

His campaign finance records suggest the answer — and Florida voters deserve an attorney general who answers to them, not to the industries he may one day be called upon to hold accountable.