2024 A Look Back: Keep quiet award
Rep. Chuck Edwards
File photo
Rep. Chuck Edwards has refused to speak to The Smoky Mountain News since shortly after he was elected in 2022.
He’s been silent on critical issues of national and regional importance — silent on protecting Social Security, silent on preserving veterans health care, silent on what he did to prevent the Pactiv-Evergreen paper mill in Canton from closing, silent on funding our national parks, silent on why North Carolina didn’t get the congressional funding it needs to recover fully from the damage associated with Hurricane Helene.
Dead silence.
It can be frustrating when elected officials refuse even basic communications, but the only real losers are his constituents, for whom Edwards appears to care little.
But when he does talk, it’s may actually be worse.
In 2022, Edwards pulled out of a live campaign debate hosted by The Smoky Mountain News and Blue Ridge Public Radio, instead appearing in a pre-taped event on a television channel owned by the right-leaning Sinclair Broadcast Group, with whom he’d already spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on advertising.
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At a town hall meeting in Canton in summer 2023, Edwards refused to answer a question from The Smoky Mountain News about what he’d done to prevent the mill from closing, saying he’d only communicate with outlets that give him favorable coverage.
In that same meeting, a constituent asked Edwards how Buncombe County residents could help their neighbors after closing of the paper mill and loss of roughly 1,000 good-paying union jobs. Edwards, who could have used the opportunity to create unity, instead decided it would be a good idea to dunk on Asheville, saying that they should “clean Buncombe County up, get the needles off the streets, get a DA in place and prosecute criminals to reduce crime and not allow the spill over into our haven over here.”
Last February, Edwards was accused of misusing his free (read: taxpayer funded) communications privileges by utilizing a campaign mailer to attack Asheville Democratic officials, and was later sanctioned by the House Ethics Committee.
This year, he refused to debate his General Election opponent even once.
Most recently, Edwards did earn a little bit of shine — long after others had already made public statements — by trying to dispel ridiculous Helene-related lies spread on social media, but when then-candidate for President Donald Trump came to Swannanoa after Helene and repeated some of the lies that Edwards had just debunked, Edwards, standing directly behind Trump, cowered in silence.
We’d sure like Edwards to talk to us, but come to think of it, now we understand why he won’t, so we’d rather he just keep quiet altogether.
