The Tennessee Valley Authority leadership fielded some tough questions from members of Congress last week in Washington, D.C., during a Subcommittee on Government Operations hearing. 

Democrat Rick Bryson will move on to run against U.S. Rep. Mark Meadows in the general election after narrowly winning the June 7 congressional primary.

Two Democratic candidates will face off in the June 7 election for a chance to unseat U.S. Rep. Mark Meadows, R-Cashiers, in the general election and represent Western North Carolina in Washington, D.C.

North Carolina will now have two primary elections in 2016 as lawsuits challenging the state’s districting maps continue to play out in court.

Rick Bryson, a current alderman in Bryson City, has his eyes on Washington, D.C., as he plans a run to represent North Carolina’s 11th Congressional District.

U.S. Rep. Mark Meadows, R-Cashiers, recently paid the political price for not toeing his party line.

By Don Livingston • Guest Columnist

Congress is not our most popular branch of government, not by a long shot. Its lowest job approval rating, according to one respectable polling organization, was 9 percent late last year. Earlier this year, this polling firm found that only 13 percent of the respondents in its scientific survey felt that Congress was doing a decent job. Congress’ average job approval rating since pollsters began probing for such feedback in the 1970s is around 33 percent. That’s certainly nothing to brag about.

U.S. Rep. Mark Meadows, sporting an Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians button, hosted a town hall meeting last Thursday in Cherokee that he said was the “most vocal” he has held in the district.

In his brief five months in Congress, U.S. Rep. Mark Meadows, R-Cashiers, has kept busy — voting on several pieces of key legislation, sitting in on committee hearings, drafting bills of his own and when he can, traveling back to Western North Carolina.

Give a U.S. congressman a cookie, and he can eat it. But offer him some free pancakes, and he’ll have to pass.

“I can eat a pig in a blanket, but God forbid if it’s a hot dog. If it’s a hot dog, I can’t take it,” said newly elected Congressman Mark Meadows about being able to accept an hors d’oeuvre but not a meal according to a set of ethical rules that all members of Congress must follow.