A Florida judge blocked an effort to temporarily halt the use of a newly approved congressional map, dealing another setback to Democrats seeking to stop the state’s latest redistricting push.Florida Circuit Judge Joshua Hawkes, an appointee of Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), denied requests from multiple groups to pause implementation of the map, which is expected to strengthen Republican advantages in several districts.“The primary is less than three months away, and the general less than six months away. The public interest weighs more in favor of certainty than a haphazard judicial mandate of discarded maps,” Hawkes wrote in his ruling.
DeSantis signed the congressional map into law earlier this month during a special session of the Florida legislature. The map could shift as many as four Democratic-leaning districts to Republicans in a state where the GOP already holds a commanding advantage, with 20 of Florida’s 28 congressional districts favoring the Republican Party.
Groups challenging the map argue the proposal, crafted by DeSantis’s office and approved by Republican lawmakers, violates Florida’s constitutional ban on partisan gerrymandering.
“This is just about as clear-cut an example of prohibited partisan gerrymandering as one could think of,” said Brad Heard, deputy legal director at the Southern Poverty Law Center, one of the groups behind the lawsuit.
