Crime, cost, corruption: AG candidate Jose Javier Rodriguez outlines priorities

The Hope Florida scandal put a spotlight on the race for Florida Attorney General.

By Ed James III

Original Air Date: October 20, 2026

Host: Some argue the most important statewide race in the upcoming elections is for Florida Attorney General. That’s in part due to the Hope Florida scandal and the $10 million meant to go to healthcare for low-income children being siphoned into political campaigns. James Uthmeier, the current attorney general, has not only been connected to Hope Florida, but he has been a key player in state preemption of local decision-making, the immigrant crackdown and in the conservative makeover of education. Also, utility and property insurance costs have skyrocketed lately. Consumer protection is one of the attorney general’s tasks. WSLR’s Ed James III sat down with Democratic nominee Jose Javier Rodriguez on Rap Sessions.

Jose Javier Rodriguez

Jose Javier Rodriguez: It happens that I’m a Democrat, but I’m running as a people’s lawyer, and I don’t have a partisan agenda. I really am just saying we should get back to doing what the office is supposed to do: crime, costs, corruption.

Ed James III: The former state senator and former assistant secretary of labor is making his pitch for Florida Attorney General, focusing his platform on executive oversight and consumer protections. But Rodriguez is also paying a lot of attention to the controversial transfer of $10 million in Medicaid settlement funds associated with the state’s Hope Florida initiative—a transfer orchestrated by incumbent opponent and former gubernatorial chief of staff James Uthmeier. While an appellate court recently wiped a grand jury report detailing the transaction from the formal record, Rodriguez points out that the court’s ruling left the underlying facts completely intact.

JJR: An appellate court said that the grand jury went too far in some of the conclusions that it drew. But an appellate court is not allowed to undo the factual findings that a grand jury makes because that’s what the jury is supposed to do, and they did it. So, while the appellate court took issue with some of the conclusions, if you read it, it explicitly says that it leaves the facts intact.

EJ: Rodriguez stresses that Medicaid funds—mixed federal and state taxpayer dollars—are explicitly designated to provide healthcare for the state’s poorest residents, making the diversion of these funds a critical failure of oversight.

Florida First Lady Casey DeSantis spearheaded the Hope Florida initiative

JJR: Go and get the money from people who are stealing it and put it back in the program so we have healthcare for those who need it. Pretty basic. Medicaid fraud got to such an extent under my opponent’s watch, the Trump administration—Dr. Oz—put Florida on a watch list and said that it was horrifying levels of fraud. Not only are you not doing the job because you’re not going and getting the money back and putting it in the system, you appear to be one of the fraudsters. My opponent is one of the people stealing money from the program. He appears to have temporarily gotten away with it.

EJ: The conversation then turned to local governance and state preemption. Across Southwest Florida, local municipalities regularly find themselves constrained by Tallahassee when attempting to regulate environmental impacts, manage stormwater or set boundaries on emerging industries like massive data centers. Rodriguez argues that the Attorney General’s office should be defending home rule rather than enabling state-level efforts to restrict local decisionmaking.

James Uthmeier. Photo: The Workmans by way of myfloridalegal.com

JJR: State government should apply the law and should not be applying power. The state government is a lot bigger. The state government has a lot of constitutional powers that local governments don’t have. But, when it comes to what local governments can and can’t do, oftentimes my opponent James Uthmeier—oftentimes the governor—they go around bullying local officials to get them to do things they are not required to do—dictating to local governments how they should spend local taxpayer money—requiring them to do certain things that they’re just not legally required to do. But instead of saying, “Here’s a law that says you have to do it,” they just bully them and say, “Well, I’ll remove you because I don’t like you” or whatever threat they have. That absolutely needs to end.

EJ: Rodriguez directly tied home rule protections to environmental issues and utility regulation, noting that without strong local and state oversight, Florida ratepayers end up bearing the burden of corporate expansion.

JJR: That’s the number one thing—reset that balance and have an advocate advocating for home rule. Our Constitution and statutes point us in the direction of local governance being able to say no. They should be able to say no on behalf of their people. The other thing, too, is I’ve been a big defender of water resources. I’ve been a big advocate for making sure our electric utilities are doing the right thing. From that vantage point, also making sure that these data centers are not harming our water resources and hurting consumers.

EJ: Addressing utility rates, property insurance, and tenant protections, Rodriguez argued that Florida consumers are left unprotected due to a lack of independent state advocacy—contrasting the cabinet’s current trajectory with other states where Attorneys General actively challenge utility hikes and insurance manipulation.

Jose Javier Rodriguez

JJR: In the state of Michigan, for example, the Attorney General has recovered millions of dollars that customers were charged that they shouldn’t have been. She’s also prevented millions in rate increases. The other role that the Attorney General has is on the cabinet which oversees insurance and regulates insurance. Folks may have seen—if they haven’t seen it, definitely look it up if you’re interested in the games that are played in Tallahassee to keep your rates high.

EJ: Closing out the interview, Rodriguez outlined his day-one priorities.

JJR: You’ll see my day-one priorities, and they fall into three categories: crime, cost, corruption.

EJ: Reporting for WSLR News, I’m Ed James III.

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