Florida's Leon County Circuit Court Judge Terry Lewis, who decided last month the map couldn't stand as is, specifically pointed to Rep. Corinne Brown's (D) Jacksonville 5th District and Rep. Daniel Webster's (R) Orlando 10th District, ordered the state legislature to hold a special session by Aug. 15. That means that both those districts will have to be changed, alterations that could reverberate across North Florida and give Democrats new opportunities to pick up House seats.
Lewis also suggested that new district elections may not be feasible by Election Day, meaning there may have to be special elections soon after November.
"There is just no way, legally or logistically, to put in place a new map, amend the various deadlines and have elections on November 4th as prescribed by Federal law," Lewis writes. "It might be possible to push the general election date back to allow for a special election in 2014 for any affected districts."
The state legislature now has two weeks to come up with a new map, one that will likely shed Democratic voters in Brown's ungainly Jacksonville-to-Orlando district into neighboring areas.
Webster, Reps. John Mica (R-Fla.), Dennis Ross (R-Fla.), Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) and others could all potentially see line changes that could put them in much tougher races, though the GOP-controlled state legislature that's in charge of the new lines will likely seek to do as little damage as possible to their incumbents' chances.
The decision could also force a number of districts to reopen election filing, which might give Democrats another crack at finding a candidate to challenge freshman Rep. David Jolly (R-Fla.), though it's unclear whether his district will be touched.
"It's pretty clear Democrats are going to benefit. How much is the question," said one Florida Democrat who's been closely following the case.
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