PITTSBORO — Pittsboro resident and business owner Craig Kinsey, who’s filed federally to run for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, hosted a town hall-style event at the Pittsboro Community House on Wednesday evening.
Kinsey, a registered Republican, has decided to throw his name into the hat of candidates seeking to replace Rep. David Price after Price announced he would not seek reelection to N.C.’s 4th Congressional District in 2022.
The district currently includes Durham, Orange, Franklin, Granville, and parts of Wake, Chatham, and Vance counties, but redistricting may ultimately change that.
“I’m running for Congress, and the reason I am wanting to host town halls is because I want to make sure I hear from different people about what’s important to them,” Kinsey said.
A handful of Chatham County residents came to voice concerns they had, with topics including education, COVID-19 policies and election security. Kinsey shared his thoughts on each of the topics, as well as solutions he would propose if elected.
When it comes to voter integrity and election security, some in attendance were concerned with the lack of Voter ID laws and the absentee ballot system possibly corrupting election integrity.
Kinsey said he wants to make Election Day a federal holiday to allow people ample time to vote, rather than having more people use absentee ballots.
“I think Election Day should be a holiday, and it should be a 24-hour period for voting,” he said. “No one can use the excuse ‘I can’t get there’ for a 24-hour period.”
Kinsey also said he thinks absentee voting should be reserved for those who cannot physically be at the polls. And he said he believed Voter ID laws would provide more security every election.
“If you’re on welfare or unemployment, you have ID,” he said. “If you have a job, you have Social Security so you have ID. I can’t really find a place where you don’t have ID.”
Vaccine mandates were also a topic of discussion on Wednesday evening. Some residents voiced concerns over some of the vaccine mandates placed by the federal government, citing they violated their constitutional rights.
Kinsey agreed with their concerns, calling vaccine mandates a government “overstep.”
“The federal government is just too large,” he said. “There’s a lot of things they’re involved in that they should not be.”
Kinsey also said there was overlap in some federal departments; he’d prefer to combine some agencies to help create a smaller, federal government.
“Let’s look at the welfare system: we need welfare because there are people that actually need it, but do we need 80 departments?” he said. “If we could consolidate down to two or three, then what kind of cost savings can we have within the federal government to use our money more wisely.”
One attendee, a high school student from the area, expressed concerns about the federal government’s involvement in different states’ education systems.
Kinsey said he wants schools to focus on “the three R’s” — reading, writing and arithmetic — and to stay away from subjects like critical race theory. He said one way to combat CRT in the classroom is to have a way for parents to monitor their children’s classes.
“To eliminate that issue, we should have cameras in the classrooms where the parents can either chime in on either Zoom or a Teams meeting,” he said. “This will give parents a chance to see what is being taught, and give them a chance to be more involved with their children’s education.”
Kinsey said the goal of his campaign and his town halls was to be a source for the public to voice their concerns and then come up with solutions he thinks will get the job done.
“When a politician gets elected, it seems they forget about the people who elected them, and that’s not something I want to do,” he said. “I want to be different, and that’s why I want to listen to what people have to say.”
Reporter Taylor Heeden can be reached at theeden@chathamnr.com.