A Florida judge just told Democrats what we've been telling them for years: you can't sue your way into power. Circuit Court Judge Joshua Hawkes denied an effort to block Florida's new Republican-drawn House map from taking effect, preserving the GOP's electoral advantages heading into the next cycle and handing the left yet another courtroom loss.
Shocking, I know — Democrats lost a legal battle they never should have brought. Someone alert the media. Oh wait, they won't cover this one.
Governor Ron DeSantis signed the new congressional map into law, and the usual suspects immediately lawyered up to get a judge to do what voters refused to do at the ballot box. The plaintiffs wanted the map frozen while they litigated, presumably hoping they could drag things out long enough to force some gerrymandered-in-their-favor alternative. Judge Hawkes wasn't having it.
His reasoning was refreshingly direct. "The primary is less than three months away, and the general less than six months," Judge Hawkes wrote in his ruling on May 26. "The public interest weighs more in favor of certainty than a haphazard judicial mandate of discarded maps."
Read that last part again. "A haphazard judicial mandate of discarded maps." That's a judge politely telling the plaintiffs their legal strategy is garbage.
And Florida wasn't the only state where Democrats struck out on the same day. Over in Tennessee, U.S. Chief District Judge William L. Campbell Jr. similarly rejected an attempt to block that state's GOP-favored map. Judge Campbell noted that "although the redistricting will unquestionably hamper Plaintiffs' efforts to elect their candidate of choice and may result in voter apathy, the question of whether the alleged retaliatory action of redistricting would deter a person of ordinary firmness from engaging in First Amendment speech and association is less than certain."
Translation: tough luck, counselor.
Two states, two judges, two losses for the left — all in one day. The Democratic playbook of running to court every time they lose at the legislature is getting stale, and the judiciary seems to be noticing. Both sets of plaintiffs have indicated they plan to appeal, because of course they do. When you can't win elections and you can't win lawsuits, you just keep filing appeals until you find a sympathetic panel somewhere.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has its own redistricting case on the docket involving Louisiana and Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which could further reshape the legal landscape around these challenges. Democrats are praying that case gives them new ammunition. We'll see.
Here's the bottom line, as reported by Just The News: the battlefield stays tilted our way heading into November. The maps are locked. The primaries are around the corner. And Democrats are going to have to do something they absolutely hate — compete on the actual playing field instead of trying to redraw it from the bench.
Another failed Hail Mary. Another quiet win for the good guys.
