In late April, Chase Pellegrini de Paur covered a rare in-person town hall with Representative Valerie Foushee, where she offered attendees some assurances about the state of the country. Foushee has since announced more in-person events, and readers have sounded off on her community engagement:
An excerpt from Reddit user radarbot:
She is running in a combined district that stretches across Durham, Chapel HIll, Carrboro and Pittsboro. These districts are some of the most liberal in the country, and voted Harris in the highest margins in the entire nation 2024.
Our representative could get away with being an aggressively progressive campaign that includes widely popular ideas such as:
- health care for all
- human rights coverage for all
- higher federal minimum wage
- higher taxes on mega rich, billionaires and 0.1 percent
- free post-secondary education
- free public school lunches
- enshrining women’s rights to bodily autonomy in the constitution
… amongst others.
Even radical progressive ideas would be safe in this district, as it’s one of the bluest districts in the country. It would be federally important to have such a progressive candidate representing a southern state. This dichotomy would be powerful on a national stage.
At the town hall, Foushee said her number one priority is voters’ rights. And did talk about protecting Medicare, Social Security and other services (ie. VA, etc). But there was a lack of urgency from Foushee. Like many rank-and-file Dems, she’s still relying on courts, legislation and laws to try to curtail the descent of this nation into fascism. She isn’t the poster child of “war-time politician” which is relevant in today’s political climate.
From reader Samantha Slayer via email:
Thanks for covering this. I left early from work and drove an hour from Hillsborough to attend because the announcement gave no indication there would be other town halls and suggested it would be tough to get a seat at this one, which was not the case.
Maybe other attendees were impressed by Valerie’s presence but I walked away feeling like she had blown a lot of hot air, blamed constituents for her party’s incompetence, and wasted my time.
She said some stuff about fighting, but when asked specific questions about what she was doing in the face of a criminally incompetent and openly hostile executive branch, she couldn’t say how she was fighting. She and [Representative] Robert Reives kept pivoting back to talking about how the Republicans wouldn’t work with them and how we—the people engaged enough to show up at a town hall who don’t have a staff of people working toward our political goals—need to do more to turn out votes.
I’m not the only Democrat who’s sick of being told to put all my eggs in the electoral basket only for them to squander every inch of power we give them. This government is trying to put me on a registry and force me to pop out white babies and abduct my neighbors off the street and criminalize my friends’ bodies and push me into inescapable poverty and make it extremely difficult for me to exercise the electoral power I am entitled to by law and the blood, sweat, and tears of the women who came before me.
Telling me you, as an elected official with a staff and influence and authority, can’t do shit until midterms and it’s all my fault for not organizing enough votes … It’s unacceptable to me.
Last month, the INDY launched a new series, Lunch Money, in which Lena Geller sets out to find a satisfying meal for under $15, ideally with a main, side, and drink included. Readers have since shared plenty of ideas for where Lena should dine next, and their thoughts on the biweekly series:
From Bluesky user raleighreporter:
I appreciate this approach to food coverage so much more than the breathless coverage of whatever new “concept” one of the Triangle’s five celebrity-ish chefs is gonna open next year.
From reader Ali Huber-Disla via email:
I love the budget meal articles and that they will be a more regular thing!
My only thought is that a drink shouldn’t be expected to be part of it, especially since so many people carry their own water bottles these days or can just get a free cup of water.
I think the emphasis should be on trying interesting local food that leads to the author feeling full, so skip the can soda and get that fancier side that’s a dollar more!
From Bluesky user tiphaggard:
hell yeah, local journalism stays winning