A judge in Florida declined to temporarily block the state’s aggressive new congressional map on Tuesday, allowing it to remain as a lawsuit challenging it moves forward. The map could give Republicans four additional seats as they try to maintain control of Congress in the November midterm elections.
The voting and civil rights groups that sued this month argue that the map violates a state ban on partisan gerrymandering, known as the Fair Districts amendments, that voters passed in 2010. But Judge Joshua M. Hawkes of the Second Judicial Circuit in Tallahassee wrote in denying the temporary injunction that the groups had not sufficiently proven that their case was likely to succeed.
Judge Hawkes also disagreed with the plaintiffs’ argument that if the court temporarily blocked the new map, it should reinstate the previous districts. The administration of Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, had argued that a majority-Black district included in the previous map would be unconstitutional under a recent Supreme Court ruling that weakened the federal Voting Rights Act.
Noting that he had to weigh both the plaintiffs’ argument that the new map violated Florida’s ban on partisan redistricting and the state’s argument that its previous map violated the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution, Judge Hawkes sided with the state, writing that “the potential partisan intent in the 2026 map is the lesser of the two evils.”
The plaintiffs said that they would appeal, though time is running short. Congressional candidates can begin qualifying for Florida’s Aug. 18 primary ballot this week, a deadline extended this year as President Trump pushed for Republicans across the country to take the highly unusual step of redistricting in the middle of the decade.
“Because Floridians of all political backgrounds are so clearly against partisan gerrymandering, we will exhaust all legal options to make sure a map this partisan does not last the rest of this decade,” Amy Keith, executive director of Common Cause Florida, one of the plaintiffs, said in a statement.
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