In November, 2020, Virginia voters approved a Constitutional Amendment establishing a bi-partisan commission to fix the problem of gerrymandering and take redistricting power away from the legislature. When the new commission was unable to agree on a map, the Virginia Supreme Court took over, as specified in the amendment.New voting maps are now in place.How have things changed? Is the new system a success?League of Women Voters members Peggy Layne and Chris DeRosa were deeply involved in the process of change and provide great insight into the new plan.

Artist Charles Vess

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Dr. Teresa Keller began hosting This Conversation each week in 2009 on WEHC-FM, Emory.  Keller's broadcast career began many years ago at WCYB-TV, an NBC affiliate in Bristol, VA where she worked for seven years as a talk show host, reporter, and anchor of the noon news.  She also spent time working in television newsrooms in Denver and San Diego, and worked as a contributing reporter for WVTF public radio in Roanoke, VA.  As a professor of Mass Communications at Emory & Henry College, she garnered two statewide teaching awards: the 2003 Virginia Professor of the Year award, presented by the Carnegie Foundation, and the Virginia Council on Higher Education’s Outstanding Faculty Award in 2010.  She is author of Television News: The Art and How-to of Video Storytelling -- now in its 4th edition.  While at Emory & Henry, she wrote the FCC application for WEHC-FM, now a 9,000 watt College and Community station that went on the air in 1992.  She served as a board member of Holston Valley Broadcasting Corporation for more than a decade and spent two terms on the Board of Directors of the Virginia Association of Broadcasters.  Many earlier episodes of the broadcast are available at https://archive.org/details/ThisConversation.