A House bill proposed by Western North Carolina reps. Mike Clampitt, R-Bryson City, and Mark Pless, R-Haywood, includes significant changes to a judicial district that is larger than the states of Delaware and Rhode Island combined.

When Republican Sen. Kevin Corbin, R-Franklin, announced  during a March 25 listening session at Southwestern Community College that he intended to file a bill addressing the health care coverage gap, he also said he hadn’t quite formulated the particulars of it because he wanted to introduce something that would pass the Republican-controlled legislature. 

With the support of a bi-partisan panel including commissioners from Macon and Graham counties as well as the head of the Cherokee Indian Hospital Authority, Sen. Kevin Corbin, R-Franklin, announced he’d soon file a bill intended to close the health insurance coverage gap in North Carolina. 

In the interest of transparency, all responses from local officials regarding the Jan. 6 insurrection have been published online, in their entirety. Some submissions may have been lightly edited for grammar, spelling and punctuation or to conform with AP style. 

Since last fall, events in North Carolina’s 50th Senate District have largely been overshadowed by an attention-grabbing race in the 11th Congressional District, but the bigger story is that one of Western North Carolina’s most powerful voices won’t return to Raleigh next session. 

Republican voters in seven western counties have again decided that a candidate from Franklin, in Macon County, should be their voice in the N.C. Senate.

When five-term N.C. Sen. Jim Davis, R-Franklin, announced his surprise retirement at the Macon County GOP headquarters last fall, it wasn’t much of a surprise that he’d asked two-term House Rep. Kevin Corbin, a Republican also of Franklin, to succeed him in the Senate. 

Although Franklin Republican Rep. Kevin Corbin has decided to run for the state Senate in 2020, Western North Carolina Republicans are intent on keeping his House seat out of Democratic hands. 

A powerful voice for Western North Carolina in the North Carolina General Assembly is about to pop the kickstand on a long career in public service, but even though Franklin Republican Sen. Jim Davis has already passed the torch to his heir apparent, at least one other Republican is lining up to take a crack at his seat. 

There’s probably no bigger economic development issue in rural America than access to dependable high-speed internet service. 

“One hundred percent,” said Rep. Kevin Corbin, R-Franklin. “It’s the biggest issue in Western North Carolina as far as infrastructure and the economy.”