Tillis Veers to the Left

Thom Tillis, in an interview with the National Journal, reveals a Republican senator ready to move even further Left.

In the article, Tillis promoted some interesting takes on the recent election and North Carolina’s electorate.

Tillis described North Carolina as “barely right-of-center,” which is baffling seeing that in 2010 Republicans won both chambers of the General Assembly for the first time – ever. Moreover, the 2010 elections took place in legislative districts drawn by Democrats. Then, in 2012, Republicans added to the early win by gaining veto-proof majorities in the legislature and electing a governor and a lieutenant governor. Republicans held on to their veto-proof majorities in both chambers in 2014,  and in 2016 won three additional Council of State seats as well as holding the lieutenant governor’s post, and voting for Donald Trump, giving him a nearly 4-percentage point advantage over Hillary Clinton.

The freshman senator said he sees the 2016 election for governor in North Carolina as a “cautionary tale.” It’s an interesting take on the election because some would argue that Tillis, when he was Speaker of the N.C. House, pushed the I-77 toll road project that ultimately would be one of the main reasons Pat McCrory lost his re-election bid. And the article appears to confirm rumors that Tillis blocked and or delayed conservative legislation while he was Speaker of the House. There were always rumors that he may have been the hold-up on the marriage amendment, abortion legislation and tax cuts.

“And Tillis said his role as speak­er gave him ex­per­i­ence tak­ing on his own party—something he plans to do more of as Re­pub­lic­ans as­sume total con­trol of Wash­ing­ton next year. In the state House, Tillis passed an agenda that in­cluded tort re­form, an­ti­abor­tion meas­ures, and a con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ment to ban gay mar­riage—is­sues he said angered as many Re­pub­lic­ans as Demo­crats, be­cause his own party wanted to be even more ag­gress­ive.

“The people who would want us to go fur­ther on any one bill, they rep­res­ent the single greatest threat to us mak­ing pro­gress on the very sub­ject mat­ter,” said Tillis, cit­ing ex­amples of bills that have been ve­toed or thrown out in court.”

Tillis has also threatened not to run again if he doesn’t get his way on criminal justice reform/bipartisan judicial reform:

“He made news on that top­ic earli­er this month, sug­gest­ing he wouldn’t seek reelec­tion in 2020 if the Sen­ate didn’t make mean­ing­ful pro­gress on it and oth­er is­sues. He doubled down on that claim in the in­ter­view, but said he did not have his sights set on any oth­er jobs.”

About social issues, Tillis said,

“When you wade too far in­to some of the more con­tro­ver­sial so­cial is­sues, then you be­gin to see an in­creas­ing amount of op­pos­i­tion.”

This just may be the heart of the matter.  Tillis doesn’t want to fight for many of the pro-family issues that most North Carolinians support.