Leon Circuit Judge Joshua Hawkes has dismissed Rep. Paula Stark’s lawsuit to get on the ballot and ordered the Clerk to close the file.

Hawkes denied her request to be placed back on the ballot in his order issued after a July 8 hearing.

Stark was given seven days to respond to why her case should not be dismissed, but Hawkes wrote in his final order last week that “No response was forwarded to chambers. Instead Petitioner submitted a motion for reconsideration which is denied by a separate order.”

Controversial lawyer Anthony Sabatini had been representing Stark.

Stark’s re-election troubles began when she failed to qualify on the ballot and missed the June 12 qualifying deadline.

She blamed the snafu on her campaign treasurer, Joel Davis, who is also her significant other. Her lawsuit said Davis submitted Form 6 — a public disclosure of financial interests — but a clerk accidentally returned it to him, so it was never filed. However, several state employees denied ever receiving the form or handing it back.

Without Stark, there is no other Republican running for House District 47. The only other candidates are Democrats, Jorge Figueroa and Anthony Nieves, which means the Florida Democratic Party flips the seat in Osceola and Orange that had traditionally been blue before Stark’s surprising win in 2022.

Hawkes did not buy Stark’s story of how she failed to qualify in the final hour before the qualifying deadline last month. 

“What likely happened in this case, as counsel for Intervenors suggests, was that Mr. Davis thought the Form 6 was not needed because he had submitted it the day before to the Florida Commission on Ethics,” the Judge wrote in his order early this month.

“Mr. Davis attributed this line of thinking to the clerk in supposedly handing him back the Form 6, but it is much more likely that he thought this and did not actually turn in the Form 6. In any case, the Court does not credit the story of DOE staff immediately returning the Form 6, the Form 6 was not turned in before the noon deadline, and Petitioner did not show that she qualified for HD 47.”

Stark, Sabatini and Florida Democrats did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.