In defense of James Uthmeier, the myth of citizen Legislature

Before you react, yes, this is an argument for paying public officials more.

I can already hear it.

Public service is not about money. They knew what the job paid when they ran. That reaction feels righteous. It is also lazy. This is not about sympathy. It is about incentives. And incentives are policy.

Florida is watching outrage swirl around Attorney General James Uthmeier’s outside teaching income. Some of it is political. Some is performative. But some reflect a fair instinct: Floridians want their chief legal officer focused entirely on the job. That instinct is reasonable. What is not reasonable is pretending we did not design the structure that produced this headline.

Florida’s Attorney General oversees one of the largest legal operations in the state. The office supervises hundreds of attorneys, directs multibillion-dollar litigation, and defends the constitutional boundaries of a trillion-dollar economy. The base salary for that role is about $128,000. That is roughly what a third-year associate at a mid-size Florida law firm earns. This is not an insult to associates.

It is a matter of scale. A third-year associate practices under supervision. They do not run a statewide legal enterprise. They are not accountable to 22 million voters for constitutional interpretation and billions in taxpayer exposure. The Attorney General is.

If we compensate the chief legal officer of a trillion-dollar state at the level of a mid-level associate, we should not be shocked when that compensation collides with reality. We built the math. Now we are angry at the result.

The same structural flaw exists in the Legislature, and it is slowly turning the idea of a citizen Legislature into a myth. Florida legislators earn $29,697 per year in base salary, a figure that has barely moved in decades. Why? Two reasons. First, no one wants to vote for a pay raise and then defend it in a campaign ad. Second, keeping it low quietly limits who can afford to run.

Yes, the job is technically part-time. That label does not survive contact with reality. It is roughly 100 days in Tallahassee, plus Special Sessions, District Office hours, community events, and the constant work of staying informed on increasingly complex policy. If you want to do it well, it takes everything you are willing to give and then about 20% more.

Low pay does not produce virtue. It produces a filter. Four groups reliably pass through that filter:

The independently wealthy. For them, income is not a constraint. Public service is affordable because financial security already exists.

Retirees. Service becomes practical only after a career has been completed and savings accumulated.

The Proximity Class. Those whose second job is less about the work itself and more about the access it provides. On paper, it is employment with a firm or company. In practice, the value is proximity: insight into policy, relationships inside the Capitol, and early visibility into how legislation moves. It may be legal. It may be disclosed. But when public compensation cannot stand on its own, the market fills the gap, and it rarely does so without expecting influence in return.

The exhausted. Those working two jobs, struggling to make the math work until it doesn’t. I knew legislators who finished Session, changed out of their suits, and drove an Uber to make ends meet.

That is not a story about sacrifice. It is a story about design.

Public service is not supposed to be a path to wealth. But it also should not require private wealth to participate. In a $115 billion annual budget, properly compensating constitutional officers and legislators is not a fiscal crisis. It is a rounding error. The structural consequences are far larger than the cost.

This is not about Uthmeier the person. It applies whether the Attorney General is a Republican, a Democrat, or an Independent. The office matters more than the occupant.

If Floridians want an Attorney General fully focused on the job, the Legislature should treat the office like what it is, the managing partner in Florida’s massive law firm. If we want a Legislature capable of serious oversight of a trillion-dollar economy, we should stop pretending $29,697 is a sustainable foundation for broad citizen participation.

We can fix this without self-dealing. Create an independent compensation Commission. Require changes to take effect in 2030. Tie legislative pay to an objective benchmark so it adjusts automatically and transparently.

But at the very least, we should be honest about the system we have built. We built a system that requires outside income, and now we are scandalized that it exists. If you want independence, fund it. If you do not, stop pretending the outcome was accidental.

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Jeff Brandes is a former state Senator, founder and president of The Florida Policy Project, a 501(c)(3) research-based think tank. He served twelve years in the Florida Legislature.