Both major parties in North Carolina’s 11th Congressional District have for years been plagued by political instability. 

Chairs come and go, strategies collapse as quickly as they form while rank-and-file party faithful are left scrambling.

Congressional redistricting  — the process of drawing electoral districts to account for population changes — was conceived by the Founding Fathers as a once-per-decade redrawing of district lines following the decennial U.S. census.

To the Editor:

Yesterday a small but dedicated group of resistors gathered on the corner of Dillard Road and Main Street, here in Highlands. We engaged in a silent protest in response to recent cuts in SNAP and Medicaid benefits in the Big Beautiful Bill passed by the House of Representatives.

Retired Air Force Col. Moe Davis is stepping back into familiar turf — running for Congress in North Carolina’s 11th Congressional District. 

“I just keep looking at what Chuck Edwards is not doing for the district,” Davis told The Smoky Mountain News May 5.

To the Editor:

To prescribe term limits for what ails Congress is like offering bleach for COVID-19. It can’t help. It is likely to make matters worse. It’s a distraction from what ought to be done. 

A group of law enforcement officers, elected officials and concerned citizens is renewing its years-long effort to get a series of new laws through the General Assembly this year. 

To the Editor:

The economy of this great nation, and indeed, the world, is a huge thing that, like those supertankers and container ships that help keep it all running, does not change direction very fast or easily short of some major shock to the system. 

To the Editor:

Since the beginning of the new year, I have seen several photos of Sen. Kevin Corbin (R-Macon) handing out oversized checks in some of Western North Carolina’s counties.

Western Carolina University is gearing up to take its first bite out of an estimated $130 million in needed upgrades to its athletic facilities, with the Board of Trustees recently hiring a construction manager to oversee the first chunk of projects, worth at least $30 million. 

Imagine the following scenario: In a fit of misguided “get tough on crime” paranoia, state lawmakers enact a broad-based scheme to “stop coddling criminals.”