What role may race play in the decennial process of drawing district lines for federal and state elections? In Alexander v. South Carolina Conference of the NAACP, the Court held that a congressional districting map was not an impermissible exercise in racial gerrymanderingGerrymandering. The map in question was adopted by a Republican-controlled legislature that wished to create a stronger Republican “tilt” in one of the two districts in the Charleston, South Carolina area. That required significant movement of the black voting age population (BVAP) in an attempt to preserve Democratic influence in an adjoining district. Both the individual charged with drawing the map and the legislature understood that in South Carolina there was a strong correlation between race and party affiliation and support, with the BVAP skewing sharply in favor of the Democrats. They believed, accordingly, that they were undertaking a permissible exercise of the traditional state power to engage in partisan gerrymandering.