Thomas Roland Tillis (born August 30, 1960) is an American politician serving as the
junior
Junior or Juniors may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Music
* ''Junior'' (Junior Mance album), 1959
* ''Junior'' (Röyksopp album), 2009
* ''Junior'' (Kaki King album), 2010
* ''Junior'' (LaFontaines album), 2019
Films
* ''Junior'' (1994 ...
United States senator
The United States Senate is the Upper house, upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the United States House of Representatives, House of Representatives being the Lower house, lower chamber. Together they compose the national Bica ...
from
North Carolina
North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...
since 2015. A
Republican
Republican can refer to:
Political ideology
* An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law.
** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...
, he was elected to the
North Carolina House of Representatives
The North Carolina House of Representatives is one of the two houses of the North Carolina General Assembly. The House is a 120-member body led by a Speaker of the House, who holds powers similar to those of the President pro-tem in the North Ca ...
in 2006, and began serving as the
speaker
Speaker may refer to:
Society and politics
* Speaker (politics), the presiding officer in a legislative assembly
* Public speaker, one who gives a speech or lecture
* A person producing speech: the producer of a given utterance, especially:
** I ...
in 2011. He was elected to the United States Senate
in 2014, defeating
Democratic incumbent
Kay Hagan
Janet Kay Hagan (née Ruthven; May 26, 1953 – October 28, 2019) was an American lawyer, banking executive, and politician who served as a United States Senator from North Carolina from 2009 to 2015. A member of the Democratic Party, she previo ...
, and reelected in
2020
2020 was heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to global Social impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, social and Economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, economic disruption, mass cancellations and postponements of events, COVID- ...
, defeating Democratic nominee
Cal Cunningham
James Calvin "Cal" Cunningham III (born August 6, 1973) is an American lawyer, politician, and retired military officer. A member of the Democratic Party and a lieutenant colonel in the United States Army Reserve, he served one term as a North ...
.
As speaker of the North Carolina House of Representatives, Tillis led the Republican effort to block the expansion of
Medicaid
Medicaid in the United States is a federal and state program that helps with healthcare costs for some people with limited income and resources. Medicaid also offers benefits not normally covered by Medicare, including nursing home care and pers ...
and worked to introduce restrictions on
abortion
Abortion is the termination of a pregnancy by removal or expulsion of an embryo or fetus. An abortion that occurs without intervention is known as a miscarriage or "spontaneous abortion"; these occur in approximately 30% to 40% of pregn ...
, stringent
voting requirements, and a constitutional amendment banning
same-sex marriage
Same-sex marriage, also known as gay marriage, is the marriage of two people of the same Legal sex and gender, sex or gender. marriage between same-sex couples is legally performed and recognized in 33 countries, with the most recent being ...
.
In the Senate, he has sought to roll back and repeal the
Affordable Care Act
The Affordable Care Act (ACA), formally known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and colloquially known as Obamacare, is a landmark U.S. federal statute enacted by the 111th United States Congress and signed into law by Presid ...
, proposed a 15-year pathway to citizenship for some
undocumented youth as a more conservative alternative to the bipartisan
DREAM Act
The Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act, known as the DREAM Act, is a United States legislative proposal to grant temporary conditional residency, with the right to work, to illegal immigrants who entered the United States a ...
, and voted for the
Bipartisan Safer Communities Act
The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act is a landmark United States federal law passed during the 117th United States Congress. It implemented several changes to the mental health system, school safety programs, and gun safety laws. Gun safety laws ...
, which provided state funding for
red flag laws, crises intervention orders and school safety resources. Tillis initially opposed President
Donald Trump
Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021.
Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pe ...
's
national emergency declaration to divert funding to a
border wall
A border barrier is a separation barrier that runs along or near an international border. Such barriers are typically constructed for border control purposes such as curbing illegal immigration, human trafficking, and smuggling. Some such barr ...
, but voted for it after pressure from his party. His views on same-sex marriage evolved over time, and in 2022 Tillis voted for the
Respect for Marriage Act
The Respect for Marriage Act (RFMA; ) is a landmark United States federal law passed by the 117th United States Congress and signed into law by President Joe Biden. It repeals the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), requires the U.S. federal gover ...
, which repealed the
Defense of Marriage Act
The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was a United States federal law passed by the 104th United States Congress and signed into law by President Bill Clinton. It banned federal recognition of same-sex marriage by limiting the definition of marr ...
(DOMA) and codified same-sex and
interracial marriage
Interracial marriage is a marriage involving spouses who belong to different races or racialized ethnicities.
In the past, such marriages were outlawed in the United States, Nazi Germany and apartheid-era South Africa as miscegenation. In 19 ...
into federal law.
Early life and education
Tillis was born in
Jacksonville, Florida
Jacksonville is a city located on the Atlantic coast of northeast Florida, the most populous city proper in the state and is the largest city by area in the contiguous United States as of 2020. It is the seat of Duval County, with which the ...
, the son of Margie and Thomas Raymond Tillis, a boat
draftsman
A drafter (also draughtsman / draughtswoman in British and Commonwealth English, draftsman / draftswoman or drafting technician in American and Canadian English) is an engineering technician who makes detailed technical drawings or plans for ...
.
He was the oldest boy among six children, with three older sisters. One of his brothers,
Rick Tillis
Thomas Richard Tillis (born September 22, 1963) is an American politician who served in the Tennessee House of Representatives from the 92nd district as a member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party. During his tenure in th ...
, served in the
Tennessee House of Representatives
The Tennessee House of Representatives is the lower house of the Tennessee General Assembly, the state legislature of the U.S. state of Tennessee.
Constitutional requirements
According to the state constitution of 1870, this body is to consis ...
. By age 17, his family had moved 20 times, and Tillis never attended the same school in consecutive years, living in
and
Nashville
Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the seat of Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the most populous city in the state, 21st most-populous city in the U.S., and the ...
, among other places.
Following his 1978 graduation from high school, Tillis left home to get a job.
He then attended
Chattanooga State Community College
Chattanooga State Community College (Chattanooga State or, informally, Chatt State) is a public community college in Chattanooga, Tennessee.“Chattanooga State Community College.” Educating Tennessee. Tennessee Board of Regents. http://www.tb ...
before receiving a Bachelor of Science in technology management from the
University of Maryland University College
The University of Maryland Global Campus (UMGC, formerly University of Maryland University College) is a public university in Adelphi, Maryland. It is the largest of the University System of Maryland campuses. Established in 1947, UMGC focuses on ...
in 1996.
Career
After high school, Tillis worked at
Provident Life and Accident Insurance Co. in
Chattanooga, Tennessee
Chattanooga ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Hamilton County, Tennessee, United States. Located along the Tennessee River bordering Georgia, it also extends into Marion County on its western end. With a population of 181,099 in 2020, ...
, helping computerize records in conjunction with
Wang Laboratories
Wang Laboratories was a US computer company founded in 1951 by An Wang and G. Y. Chu. The company was successively headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts (1954–1963), Tewksbury, Massachusetts (1963–1976), and finally in Lowell, Massachusett ...
, a computer company in Boston.
Wang eventually hired Tillis to work in its Boston office.
He spent two and a half years there before being transferred back to Chattanooga, and then Atlanta.
In 1990, he was recruited to work for accounting and consulting firm
Price Waterhouse
PricewaterhouseCoopers is an international professional services brand of firms, operating as partnerships under the PwC brand. It is the second-largest professional services network in the world and is considered one of the Big Four accounting ...
.
In 1996, Tillis was promoted to partner.
In 1998, he and his family moved to
Cornelius, North Carolina
Cornelius is a suburban town located along Lake Norman in northern Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, United States. It is a major suburb in the Charlotte metropolitan area. The population was 24,866 at the 2010 census.
History
Potts Plantation i ...
.
PricewaterhouseCoopers sold its consulting arm to IBM in 2002 and Tillis went to IBM as well.
Tillis began his political career in 2002 in
Cornelius, as he pushed for a local bike trail and was elected to the town's park board. He ran for town commissioner in 2003 and tied for second place.
North Carolina House of Representatives
After a two-year term as town commissioner, Tillis ran for the General Assembly in 2006. He defeated incumbent
John W. Rhodes in the Republican primary and went on to win the election unopposed.
Tillis was reelected unopposed in 2008, 2010 and 2012. He formally left IBM in 2009.
He was campaign chairman for the House Republican Caucus in 2010. After Republicans won a majority in the North Carolina House for the first time since 1998, Tillis was chosen as Speaker, the fifth Republican to hold the role, and was unanimously reelected in 2013. ''
Governing
Governance is the process of interactions through the laws, norms, power or language of an organized society over a social system ( family, tribe, formal or informal organization, a territory or across territories). It is done by the gove ...
'' magazine named Tillis and
North Carolina Senate
The North Carolina Senate is the upper chamber of the North Carolina General Assembly, which along with the North Carolina House of Representatives—the lower chamber—comprises the state legislature of North Carolina. The term of office for e ...
President ''
pro tempore
''Pro tempore'' (), abbreviated ''pro tem'' or ''p.t.'', is a Latin phrase which best translates to "for the time being" in English. This phrase is often used to describe a person who acts as a ''locum tenens'' (placeholder) in the absence of ...
''
Phil Berger "GOP Legislators to Watch" in 2011.
The state house overseen by Tillis restructured the state's tax code,
redrew North Carolina's congressional districts, and passed legislation to
sunset
Sunset, also known as sundown, is the daily disappearance of the Sun below the horizon due to Earth's rotation. As viewed from everywhere on Earth (except the North and South poles), the equinox Sun sets due west at the moment of both the spring ...
existing state rules and regulations and limit new regulations to ten years.
After Republican
Pat McCrory
Patrick Lloyd McCrory (born October 17, 1956) is an American businessman, politician and radio host who served as the 74th governor of North Carolina from 2013 to 2017. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as the 53rd Mayor ...
was elected governor in 2012, Tillis presided over legislation reducing
early voting
Early voting, also called advance polling or pre-poll voting, is a convenience voting process by which voters in a public election can vote before a scheduled election day. Early voting can take place remotely, such as via postal voting, or in ...
days, invalidating ballots cast outside one's
precinct, and
requiring specific kinds of photo ID in order to vote.
A top Tillis aide had previously requested data on photo ID ownership by race, which showed that black people would be significantly more likely than white people to become unable to vote if such legislation passed. Tillis said he requested the data to ensure the bill would not violate federal laws against discrimination.
[ The U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the restrictions, writing in its ]opinion
An opinion is a judgment, viewpoint, or statement that is not conclusive, rather than facts, which are true statements.
Definition
A given opinion may deal with subjective matters in which there is no conclusive finding, or it may deal with f ...
that they "target African Americans with almost surgical precision".[
In 2014, 14 people ]protesting
A protest (also called a demonstration, remonstration or remonstrance) is a public expression of objection, disapproval or dissent towards an idea or action, typically a political one.
Protests can be thought of as acts of coopera ...
cuts to the earned income tax credit
The United States federal earned income tax credit or earned income credit (EITC or EIC) is a refundable tax credit for low- to moderate-income working individuals and couples, particularly those with children. The amount of EITC benefit depends ...
s program and Tillis's refusal to expand Medicaid
Medicaid in the United States is a federal and state program that helps with healthcare costs for some people with limited income and resources. Medicaid also offers benefits not normally covered by Medicare, including nursing home care and pers ...
were arrested after staging a sit-in
A sit-in or sit-down is a form of direct action that involves one or more people occupying an area for a protest, often to promote political, social, or economic change. The protestors gather conspicuously in a space or building, refusing to mo ...
in his office.
U.S. Senate
Elections
2014
In 2014, Tillis announced that he would not seek reelection to the state House, instead running for U.S. Senate against first-term Democratic incumbent Kay Hagan
Janet Kay Hagan (née Ruthven; May 26, 1953 – October 28, 2019) was an American lawyer, banking executive, and politician who served as a United States Senator from North Carolina from 2009 to 2015. A member of the Democratic Party, she previo ...
. In the Republican primary, he was endorsed by former Florida Governor Jeb Bush
John Ellis "Jeb" Bush (born February 11, 1953) is an American politician and businessman who served as the 43rd governor of Florida from 1999 to 2007. Bush, who grew up in Houston, was the second son of former President George H. W. Bush a ...
, then-North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory
Patrick Lloyd McCrory (born October 17, 1956) is an American businessman, politician and radio host who served as the 74th governor of North Carolina from 2013 to 2017. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as the 53rd Mayor ...
, former presidential candidate Mitt Romney
Willard Mitt Romney (born March 12, 1947) is an American politician, businessman, and lawyer serving as the junior United States senator from Utah since January 2019, succeeding Orrin Hatch. He served as the 70th governor of Massachusetts f ...
, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce
The United States Chamber of Commerce (USCC) is the largest lobbying group in the United States, representing over three million businesses and organizations. The group was founded in April 1912 out of local chambers of commerce at the urgin ...
. ''The New York Times'' called Tillis a "favorite of the party establishment."
During his primary campaign, Tillis skipped four candidate forums and one of three televised primary debates in an effort to avoid lesser-known rivals, and to cement his image as the "inevitable nominee". Tillis was criticized during the Republican primary for raising money from groups lobbying
In politics, lobbying, persuasion or interest representation is the act of lawfully attempting to influence the actions, policies, or decisions of government officials, most often legislators or members of regulatory agency, regulatory agencie ...
the state House. On May 6, he won the nomination with 45.68% of the vote over Greg Brannon
Gregory J. Brannon (born August 17, 1960) is an American physician and political activist. A native of Los Angeles, California, Brannon is a graduate of the University of Southern California and Chicago Medical School. After completing his resid ...
and Mark Harris, described as a victory for the Republican establishment over the insurgent Tea Party movement
The Tea Party movement was an American fiscally conservative political movement within the Republican Party that began in 2009. Members of the movement called for lower taxes and for a reduction of the national debt and federal budget defic ...
.
Tillis was announced the winner of the Senate race on November 4. He received 48.8% of the vote, the lowest winning total in North Carolina history for a U.S. Senate candidate; Hagan garnered 47.3%.
During the 2014 campaign, the Tillis campaign and the North Carolina Republican Party paid $345,000 to the data analysis firm Cambridge Analytica
Cambridge Analytica Ltd (CA), previously known as SCL USA, was a British political consulting firm that came to prominence through the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal. It was started in 2013, as a subsidiary of the private intelli ...
to microtarget voters. The company later touted their work on Tillis's campaign, including "psychographic
Psychographics is a qualitative methodology used to describe traits of humans on psychological attributes. Psychographics have been applied to the study of personality, values, opinions, attitudes, interests, and lifestyles. Two approaches to ...
profiles for all voters in North Carolina" that enabled "tailored messages" for particular audiences. Tillis's connections to the firm were scrutinized after revelations that its data had been illicitly harvested from Facebook.
In the 2014 election, Tillis received $22,888,975 in "dark money
In the politics of the United States, dark money refers to spending to influence elections where the source of the money is not disclosed to voters. In the United States, some types of nonprofit organizations may spend money on campaigns wi ...
", which constituted 81% of non-party outside spending in support. OpenSecrets
OpenSecrets is a nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C., that tracks data on campaign finance and lobbying. It was created from a merger of the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) and the National Institute on Money in Politics (NIMP). ...
placed the final cost of outside spending at $8.5 million for Hagan and $35.5 million attacking Tillis, and $13.7 million for Tillis and $20.9 million attacking Hagan, placing the totals by candidate at $44 million for Hagan, and $34.6 million for Tillis.
2020
Tillis ran for and won reelection in 2020. He was challenged in the Republican primaries by conservative businessman Garland Tucker, who spent $1.3 million to finance his campaign before dropping out in December 2019, after Trump endorsed all incumbent Republican senators up for election in 2020, including Tillis. Tillis won the March 3 Republican primary and faced Democratic nominee Cal Cunningham
James Calvin "Cal" Cunningham III (born August 6, 1973) is an American lawyer, politician, and retired military officer. A member of the Democratic Party and a lieutenant colonel in the United States Army Reserve, he served one term as a North ...
in the November general election. Cunningham led Tillis in the polls for most of the year. In October 2020, Cunningham acknowledged having an extramarital affair and his lead in the polls was reduced to less than two points before election day. Tillis received 48.7% of the vote to Cunningham's 46.9%.
Tenure
After the release of the ''Access Hollywood'' tape during the 2016 United States presidential election
The 2016 United States presidential election was the 58th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 8, 2016. The Republican ticket of businessman Donald Trump and Indiana governor Mike Pence defeated the Democratic ticket ...
, Tillis called Trump's comments "indefensible".[ According to '']Politico
''Politico'' (stylized in all caps), known originally as ''The Politico'', is an American, German-owned political journalism newspaper company based in Arlington County, Virginia, that covers politics and policy in the United States and intern ...
'', he "began the Trump era by negotiating with Democrats on immigration and co-authoring legislation to protect special counsel Robert Mueller" but has increasingly aligned himself with the president due to pressure from his party.[ While occasionally criticizing Trump's tone, Tillis said in 2017 that he had "not deviated once from any nomination or any vote that the president happens to be supportive of" and has voted with Trump's stated positions 90% of the time as of January 2021.]
In 2016, Tillis opposed filling the then Supreme Court vacancy until after the election, adding the nomination "would be best left to the next president." With around seven months until the 2016 presidential election, Tillis argued that the United States was "in the middle of a presidential election, and the Senate majority is giving the American people a voice to determine the direction of the Supreme Court". In September 2020, with less than two months to the next presidential election, Tillis supported an immediate vote on President Trump's nominee. The day after Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Joan Ruth Bader Ginsburg ( ; ; March 15, 1933September 18, 2020) was an American lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1993 until her death in 2020. She was nominated by President ...
's death, he said Trump would pick a "well-qualified and conservative jurist" while Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden would pick a "liberal activist".
Amid the COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...
, Tillis apologized after he was spotted not wearing a face mask in a crowd during Trump's acceptance speech at the 2020 Republican National Convention, saying “I fell short of my own standard”. He was criticized after he suggested that Hispanic
The term ''Hispanic'' ( es, hispano) refers to people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or Hispanidad.
The term commonly applies to countries with a cultural and historical link to Spain and to Vic ...
people were harder hit because they were less likely to wear masks and practice social distancing
In public health, social distancing, also called physical distancing, (NB. Regula Venske is president of the PEN Centre Germany.) is a set of non-pharmaceutical interventions or measures intended to prevent the spread of a contagious disea ...
. Tillis tested positive for COVID-19
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...
on October 2, 2020, after a White House event. He broadly supported Governor Roy Cooper
Roy Asberry Cooper III (born June 13, 1957) is an American attorney and politician, serving as the 75th governor of North Carolina since 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 49th attorney general of North Carolina from 20 ...
's handling of COVID-19, an unusual stance for a prominent North Carolina Republican. He also took a stance against claims that North Carolina's COVID-19 case increases were due to migrants entering the state, saying, "the biggest factor right now is we have far too many people who are refusing to get the vaccine."
Political positions
Abortion
Tillis opposes abortion
Abortion is the termination of a pregnancy by removal or expulsion of an embryo or fetus. An abortion that occurs without intervention is known as a miscarriage or "spontaneous abortion"; these occur in approximately 30% to 40% of pregn ...
. In 2011, while speaker of the North Carolina House of Representatives, he helped the House pass a law, later struck down by the courts, requiring abortion providers to perform an ultrasound
Ultrasound is sound waves with frequency, frequencies higher than the upper audible limit of human hearing range, hearing. Ultrasound is not different from "normal" (audible) sound in its physical properties, except that humans cannot hea ...
on women seeking abortions four hours before the procedure. When the law was struck down, Tillis said that the ultrasound provision was "the most critical part of the law" and that the decision should be appealed. In 2012, he voted to defund Planned Parenthood
The Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc. (PPFA), or simply Planned Parenthood, is a nonprofit organization that provides reproductive health care in the United States and globally. It is a tax-exempt corporation under Internal Reve ...
in North Carolina.
In 2013, Tillis supported a motorcycle safety bill that had been surreptitiously amended to include restrictions on abortion.
In 2014, a Tillis spokesman told ''The Washington Post'' that Tillis would support a personhood
Personhood or personality is the status of being a person. Defining personhood is a controversial topic in philosophy and law and is closely tied with legal and political concepts of citizenship, equality, and liberty. According to law, only a leg ...
bill if it were brought to the Senate floor, but only if abortion would continue to be legal "in cases of rape, incest and when the life of the mother is in danger" and if women would continue to "have access to contraceptives."
Economic policy
In a 2011 speech, Tillis said, "What we have to do is find a way to divide and conquer the people who are on assistance" by getting people who "had no choice" but to receive public assistance "to look down at these people who choose to get into a condition that makes them dependent on the government."[ After a video of the speech was publicized three years later while he was running for the US Senate, Tillis faced some blowback, with some likening the comment to Mitt Romney's "47%" remark.] Tillis said he regretted the phrasing "divide and conquer" but defended the remark's substance.[
In 2014, Tillis opposed increasing the ]federal minimum wage
A minimum wage is the lowest remuneration that employers can legally pay their employees—the price floor below which employees may not sell their labor. Most countries had introduced minimum wage legislation by the end of the 20th century. Bec ...
, and declined to comment on increasing North Carolina's minimum wage from $7.25 an hour after opposing the idea in 2010. He suggested the government should not set a minimum wage at all, calling it an "artificial threshold" that "drives up costs" and could reduce jobs.
In 2015, Tillis illustrated his attitude towards regulation by saying coffee-shop companies should be able to "opt out" of hand-washing regulations "as long as they post a sign that says, 'We don't require our employees to wash their hands after leaving the restroom.' The market will take care of that."
In January 2018, Tillis was one of 36 Republican senators to sign a letter to Trump requesting he preserve the North American Free Trade Agreement
The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA ; es, Tratado de Libre Comercio de América del Norte, TLCAN; french: Accord de libre-échange nord-américain, ALÉNA) was an agreement signed by Canada, Mexico, and the United States that crea ...
.
Environment
In 2007, Tillis voted in favor of a measure to give North Carolina a renewable portfolio standard; the state is now second in solar energy production. During his first speech on the Senate floor, in 2015, Tillis called for opening up the United States' Atlantic coast for offshore drilling
Offshore drilling is a mechanical process where a wellbore is drilled below the seabed. It is typically carried out in order to explore for and subsequently extract petroleum that lies in rock formations beneath the seabed. Most commonly, the te ...
. He opposed the Clean Power Plan
The Clean Power Plan was an Obama administration policy aimed at combating anthropogenic climate change (global warming) that was first proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in June 2014. The final version of the plan was unveil ...
and supported Trump's rollback of it. In 2017, he called on Trump to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement.
In 2014, Tillis denied that climate change was occurring. In 2015, he voted against an amendment acknowledging its existence and the contribution of human activity. In 2018, Tillis said he believed climate change is happening and that humans may contribute to it, but remained unclear about whether he agrees with the scientific consensus on climate change
There is a strong scientific consensus that the Earth is warming and that this warming is mainly caused by human activities. This consensus is supported by various studies of scientists' opinions and by position statements of scientific org ...
that it is human-caused. In his 2020 Senate campaign, ''InsideClimate News
''Inside Climate News'' is a non-profit news organization, focusing on environmental journalism.Curtis BrainardInsideClimate wins a Pulitzer ''Columbia Journalism Review'' (April 16, 2013). The publication writes that it "covers clean energy, c ...
'' described Tillis as trying to "remake himself as a moderate proponent of market-based climate solutions" despite a "record as a fossil fuel advocate closely aligned with Trump".
In November 2017, Tillis opposed Trump's nomination of Michael Dourson for an EPA
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is an independent executive agency of the United States federal government tasked with environmental protection matters. President Richard Nixon proposed the establishment of EPA on July 9, 1970; it be ...
role. In 2019, Tillis was one of 20 senators to sign a letter asking the EPA to regulate the amount of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) are synthetic organofluorine chemical compounds that have multiple fluorine atoms attached to an alkyl chain. An early definition, from 2011, required that they contain at least one perfluoroalkyl mo ...
in drinking water, after reports that they would not.
Tillis holds a 9% lifetime score from the League of Conservation Voters
The League of Conservation Voters (LCV) is an American environmental advocacy group. LCV says that it "advocates for sound environmental laws and policies, holds elected officials accountable for their votes and actions, and elects pro-environmen ...
.
Foreign policy
In 2017, Tillis was one of 21 senators to sign a letter condemning the genocide
Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the Latin ...
of the Rohingya Muslim minority in Myanmar
Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John C. Wells, Joh ...
. In 2020, he expressed support for the US military's assassination of Iranian major general Qasem Soleimani by drone strike at the Baghdad International Airport.
Gun policy
In the state House, Tillis supported an overhaul of gun laws allowing concealed weapons to be carried in restaurants and parks. He has an "A+" rating from the National Rifle Association
The National Rifle Association of America (NRA) is a gun rights advocacy group based in the United States. Founded in 1871 to advance rifle marksmanship, the modern NRA has become a prominent Gun politics in the United States, gun rights ...
(NRA), which spent $4.4 million during his 2014 Senate campaign, half in support of Tillis and half in opposition to Hagan. As of 2018, Tillis was the third-largest beneficiary of NRA funding in Congress.[
After the 2016 ]Orlando nightclub shooting
On , 2016, Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old man, killed 49 people and wounded 53 more in a mass shooting at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, United States. Orlando Police officers shot and killed him after a three-hour standoff.
In a 9- ...
, Tillis voted for Republican bills to increase funding for the federal background check system and delay gun sales for 72 hours for individuals on the terrorist watchlist, but against Democratic bills to ban individuals on the terrorist watchlist from purchasing a gun and require background checks at gun shows and during online sales.
In 2022, Tillis was one of 15 Republican senators to support the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act
The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act is a landmark United States federal law passed during the 117th United States Congress. It implemented several changes to the mental health system, school safety programs, and gun safety laws. Gun safety laws ...
, which involved funding for state red flag provisions and crisis intervention orders, funding for school safety resources, stronger background checks for buyers under age 21, and penalties for straw purchases.
Health care
Tillis opposes the Affordable Care Act
The Affordable Care Act (ACA), formally known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and colloquially known as Obamacare, is a landmark U.S. federal statute enacted by the 111th United States Congress and signed into law by Presid ...
(ACA) and has repeatedly voted to repeal it. In the state House of Representatives, he led the Republican effort to block the expansion of Medicaid
Medicaid in the United States is a federal and state program that helps with healthcare costs for some people with limited income and resources. Medicaid also offers benefits not normally covered by Medicare, including nursing home care and pers ...
in North Carolina. As the legislation prevents a governor from expanding the program,[ North Carolina remains one of only 12 states not to have done so as of September 2020.][ Tillis has said that health care is "not a government responsibility" and that he will "do everything in his power to overturn Obamacare."
In 2018, amid attempts to repeal the ACA, Tillis introduced legislation to compensate for the ACA's requirement that insurers cover people with ]preexisting condition
In the context of healthcare in the United States, a pre-existing condition is a medical condition that started before a person's health insurance went into effect. Before 2014, some insurance policies would not cover expenses due to pre-existin ...
s. The bill was criticized for containing loopholes that exempted insurers from covering issues related to preexisting conditions and for failing to match the ACA's protections against discrimination.[ Tillis subsequently backtracked and said he could make improvements to the bill, and that it was merely intended to start a discussion.]
Immigration
In 2017, amid moves by Trump to cancel DACA
Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, colloquially referred to as DACA, is a United States immigration policy that allows some individuals with unlawful presence in the United States after being brought to the country as children to receive a ...
, Tillis proposed legislation to allow some undocumented youth brought to the U.S. as children to apply for renewable five-year residency, and eventually citizenship
Citizenship is a "relationship between an individual and a state to which the individual owes allegiance and in turn is entitled to its protection".
Each state determines the conditions under which it will recognize persons as its citizens, and ...
, as a more conservative alternative to the bipartisan DREAM Act
The Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act, known as the DREAM Act, is a United States legislative proposal to grant temporary conditional residency, with the right to work, to illegal immigrants who entered the United States a ...
. High school graduates under 31 would be eligible on conditions including regular employment, military service, or engagement in higher education. Unlike the DREAM Act, it would be possible to apply for citizenship only after 15 years, and the bill would prevent those who had become citizens from petitioning to grant residency to immediate family members, as well as require temporary visa recipients to waive their right to a hearing in case of a term violation.
In February 2019, Tillis wrote an op-ed
An op-ed, short for "opposite the editorial page", is a written prose piece, typically published by a North-American newspaper or magazine, which expresses the opinion of an author usually not affiliated with the publication's editorial board. O ...
in the ''Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
'' opposing Trump's national emergency declaration concerning the southern border, which diverted funding from the Department of Defense Department of Defence or Department of Defense may refer to:
Current departments of defence
* Department of Defence (Australia)
* Department of National Defence (Canada)
* Department of Defence (Ireland)
* Department of National Defense (Philipp ...
to build a border wall between the United States and Mexico. He wrote, "I cannot justify providing the executive with more ways to bypass Congress."[ Tillis faced pressure from Trump and conservatives to support the emergency declaration, and some conservatives proposed a primary challenge against Tillis in 2020. A week after making a statement reiterating his opposition, Tillis reversed his position and voted for Trump's declaration.][
]
Internet, technology and copyright
Tillis opposes net neutrality
Network neutrality, often referred to as net neutrality, is the principle that Internet service providers (ISPs) must treat all Internet communications equally, offering users and online content providers consistent rates irrespective of co ...
. In 2017, he co-sponsored the Restoring Internet Freedom Act, a bill to nullify the Federal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdiction ...
’s Open Internet Order. In March 2017, Tillis voted for the Broadband Consumer Privacy Proposal that removed the FCC's internet privacy rules and allowed internet service provider
An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides services for accessing, using, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non-profit, or otherwise private ...
s to sell customers' browsing history without their permission.
In May 2020, Tillis voted against an amendment to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 ("FISA" , ) is a United States federal law that establishes procedures for the physical and electronic surveillance and the collection of "foreign intelligence information" between "foreign po ...
to bar warrantless surveillance of web browser history. In April 2020, Tillis, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee's intellectual property panel, wrote that he was concerned that the Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...
's "National Emergency Library" initiative, which temporarily expanded access to its 1.4 million-book collection during the COVID-19 shutdown, violated copyright law. He argued that the Internet Archive was deciding to "re-write copyright law at the expense of authors, artists, and creators"; the Internet Archive argued that it was a licensed library in the state of California and that the Copyright Act of 1976
The Copyright Act of 1976 is a United States copyright law and remains the primary basis of copyright law in the United States, as amended by several later enacted copyright provisions. The Act spells out the basic rights of copyright holders, cod ...
"provides flexibility to libraries and others to adjust to changing circumstances."
Tillis inserted an amendment to the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021 to make the unauthorized commercial streaming of copyrighted material a felony. Under this amendment, people and service providers would face up to three years in prison for unlawfully transmitting copyrighted material.
LGBT rights
In 2012, Tillis, then speaker of the North Carolina House of Representatives
The North Carolina House of Representatives is one of the two houses of the North Carolina General Assembly. The House is a 120-member body led by a Speaker of the House, who holds powers similar to those of the President pro-tem in the North Ca ...
, played a leading role in pushing for North Carolina Amendment 1
North Carolina Amendment 1 (often referred to as simply Amendment 1) was a legislatively referred constitutional amendment in North Carolina that (until overruled in federal court) amended the Constitution of North Carolina to prohibit the s ...
, a state constitutional amendment that banned same-sex marriage and civil unions. In 2014, he appealed a ruling that it was unconstitutional.[ After the 2015 U.S. Supreme Court decision '']Obergefell v. Hodges
''Obergefell v. Hodges'', ( ), is a landmark LGBT rights case in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the fundamental right to marry is guaranteed to same-sex couples by both the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protect ...
'', which recognized a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, Tillis announced that he would oppose the ruling in his role as speaker. That stance was unusual among major elected North Carolina Republican officials at the time. Others, including then-Governor Pat McCrory
Patrick Lloyd McCrory (born October 17, 1956) is an American businessman, politician and radio host who served as the 74th governor of North Carolina from 2013 to 2017. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as the 53rd Mayor ...
, accepted the ruling.
In 2015, in the Senate, Tillis voted for an amendment to a non-binding resolution that would allow same-sex married couples living in states that do not recognize same-sex marriage to have access to government resources.
In 2022, Tillis said that he "will probably" support the bipartisan bill that would seek to codify same-sex marriage in the U.S. He ultimately voted for the Respect for Marriage Act
The Respect for Marriage Act (RFMA; ) is a landmark United States federal law passed by the 117th United States Congress and signed into law by President Joe Biden. It repeals the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), requires the U.S. federal gover ...
, which repealed the Defense of Marriage Act
The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was a United States federal law passed by the 104th United States Congress and signed into law by President Bill Clinton. It banned federal recognition of same-sex marriage by limiting the definition of marr ...
(DOMA) and codified same-sex and interracial marriage
Interracial marriage is a marriage involving spouses who belong to different races or racialized ethnicities.
In the past, such marriages were outlawed in the United States, Nazi Germany and apartheid-era South Africa as miscegenation. In 19 ...
into federal law.
2021 storming of the United States Capitol
On May 28, 2021, Tillis voted against creating an independent commission to investigate the 2021 United States Capitol attack
On January 6, 2021, following the defeat of then-U.S. President Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election, a mob of his supporters attacked the United States Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. The mob was seeking to keep Trump in pow ...
. In August 2021, he said, "many involved needed to be held accountable and go to prison."[
]
Whistleblowing
Since 2015, Tillis has been a member of the Senate Whistleblower Protection Caucus.[ ] The caucus was launched by a bipartisan group of senators in 2015 to raise awareness of the need for adequate protections against retaliation for private-sector and government employees who call attention to wrongdoing. It works to foster bipartisan discussion of legislative issues affecting the treatment of whistleblowers and serves as a clearinghouse for information on whistleblower developments of interest in the Senate.
Personal life
Tillis and his wife, Susan, live in Huntersville, North Carolina, and have two children. Tillis previously twice married and twice divorced his high school sweetheart. He used to live in Cornelius, North Carolina
Cornelius is a suburban town located along Lake Norman in northern Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, United States. It is a major suburb in the Charlotte metropolitan area. The population was 24,866 at the 2010 census.
History
Potts Plantation i ...
where he was elected to the town council. His brother, Rick
Rick may refer to:
People
*Rick (given name), a list of people with the given name
*Alan Rick (born 1976), Brazilian politician, journalist, pastor and television personality
*Johannes Rick (1869–1946), Austrian-born Brazilian priest and mycol ...
, was a state representative in Tennessee.
On March 29, 2021, Tillis announced he had prostate cancer
Prostate cancer is cancer of the prostate. Prostate cancer is the second most common cancerous tumor worldwide and is the fifth leading cause of cancer-related mortality among men. The prostate is a gland in the male reproductive system that sur ...
and would be undergoing surgery and treatment. Tillis said he had no symptoms and the cancer was discovered during a routine annual physical. He encouraged all men to have regular prostate health screenings.
Electoral history
References
External links
Senator Thom Tillis
official U.S. Senate website
Campaign website
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Tillis, Thomas Roland
1960 births
IBM employees
Living people
People from Cornelius, North Carolina
Politicians from Jacksonville, Florida
PricewaterhouseCoopers people
Republican Party United States senators from North Carolina
Speakers of the North Carolina House of Representatives
Republican Party members of the North Carolina House of Representatives
University of Maryland Global Campus alumni