TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WFLA) — Not even a full week on the brand new job and Florida’s Legal professional Normal James Uthmeier is concentrating on Target. The State Board of Administration of Florida, represented by Uthmeier and America First Authorized (AFL), filed a class action lawsuit towards the retailer over its LGBTQ push.
Uthmeier says it is a battle price having.
“We are going to battle to carry Goal financially accountable for these wrongful practices and drive them and different company giants to get again to the enterprise of doing enterprise,” Uthmeier mentioned. “We’re not afraid of a battle in Florida, and you’ll guess that we can’t again down (to) the company bullies who’re keen to sacrifice returns with the intention to indoctrinate kids.”
The lawsuit alleges that Goal violated the Securities Trade Act by not disclosing the danger to traders of its range, fairness, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) efforts, notably with its 2023 Pleasure Marketing campaign.
“Goal promoted rainbow sports activities bras for boys, kids’s swimsuits with transgender options, and books for teenagers that ask them to query their organic actuality,” Uthmeier mentioned.
Uthmeier known as the marketing campaign catastrophic, claiming it is accountable for Goal’s inventory costs falling.
“This radical marketing campaign predictably induced Goal’s inventory worth to plummet, wiping out $10 billion in market worth in simply 10 days, and people losses put the retirement accounts of Florida’s academics and first responders at unacceptable threat,” Uthmeier mentioned.
Nevertheless, political analysts elevate the query, why Goal?
“Why Goal? There are different corporations in Florida retirement techniques funding portfolio which have suffered losses,” mentioned Tara Newsom with St. Pete Faculty.
Newsom added that this could possibly be political theater.
“It feels like an echo from a pair years in the past after we noticed the DeSantis Administration going after one other company that had totally different social insurance policies than what the DeSantis Administration actually agreed with and that was Disney,” Newsom mentioned. “Is Goal the brand new Disney of the second time period of Governor DeSantis?”
Home Minority Chief Fentrice Driskell (D-Tampa) added to the argument that this transfer is politically motivated.
“We all know that the lawyer normal may be very loyal to this governor, he mentioned so himself when he was being sworn in that he promised to not let the governor down,” Driskell mentioned. “Nicely, the lawyer normal is meant to be serving the folks of the nice state of Florida, not the governor. And it simply very disappointing to me that it is the people who find themselves going to lose out.”
Driskell said that this transfer feels like a rerun of the identical failed techniques from the governor’s administration.
“My constituents, they’re anxious concerning the rising price of property insurance coverage, they’re involved about housing affordability. Individuals are involved concerning the worth of eggs. We simply obtained new inflation numbers, and we see that it is going up and so it is very regarding to me that the state of Florida is injecting itself into extra tradition wars reasonably than specializing in what Floridians requested us to do within the first place, which is to decrease the price of dwelling for them,” Driskell mentioned.
Even with the pushback, Uthmeier says his workplace will proceed to push companies to remain on observe as an alternative of “political theater.”
Information Channel 8 reached out to Goal in response to the authorized motion however haven’t heard again but.
This isn’t the primary, however second lawsuit introduced by American First Authorized. The primary case was filed in August 2023 for securities fraud and stays ongoing.
