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"gewg_" writes:

The Center for American Progress reports

A majority of the justices on the Supreme Court [...] have refused to police partisan gerrymandering, largely because they believe that doing so would be too difficult. As Justice Scalia wrote in his plurality opinion in Vieth v. Jubelirer , "no judicially discernible and manageable standards for adjudicating political gerrymandering claims have emerged."

Scalia's view, however, is questionable. Mathematical models do exist that can measure when a state's electoral map produces results that are wildly out of line with voter preferences. And, in some recent gerrymandering cases, states have even openly stated that they tried to enhance some voters' power at the expense of others. Texas Attorney General and Governor-elect Greg Abbott (R) admitted in a 2013 court filing (PDF) that "In 2011, both houses of the Texas Legislature were controlled by large Republican majorities, and their redistricting decisions were designed to increase the Republican Party's electoral prospects at the expense of the Democrats." At the very least, a court should be able to discern that a partisan gerrymander occurred when the state freely admits as much.

A potentially significant writing contest sponsored by the Washington, DC advocacy group Common Cause seeks to further repudiate the claim that there is no meaningful way for judges to determine when a legislative map was drawn to give one party an advantage over the others. The contest offers a $5,000 top prize to lawyers and scholars who submit papers "creating a new definition for partisan gerrymandering or further developing an existing definition." (PDF) So the contest seeks to show that, if enticed by a cash prize, a community of scholars can discover something that the justices themselves cannot find—or at least that they claim not to have found—a way to prevent lawmakers from choosing their own voters.

The deadline for submissions is Friday, February 27, 2015.
The winners will be announced in May 2015.