Thilli$$$: No more controver$$$y, plea$$$e. (I need to get PAID.)

Posted on by

Thom Tillis is out there preaching that national Republicans can learn a lesson from Pat McCrory about — get this — moving too far to the right:

For all the GOP’s elect­or­al suc­cess this year, Sen. Thom Tillis says the party should see North Car­o­lina’s gubernat­ori­al race—in which the state fired the first Re­pub­lic­an gov­ernor it’s had in 20 years—as a cau­tion­ary tale.

The former state House speak­er, who over­saw the cham­ber dur­ing Re­pub­lic­ans’ in­cre­ment­al takeover of power in Raleigh, is vow­ing to work across the aisle in the Sen­ate in the next Con­gress. And he wants his party in Wash­ing­ton to ex­er­cise cau­tion in in­ter­pret­ing its man­date from voters in Novem­ber. If not, Tillis said in an in­ter­view from his Sen­ate of­fice last week, na­tion­al Re­pub­lic­ans could be de­railed by the type of dis­trac­tions he be­lieves cost Gov. Pat Mc­Crory his reelec­tion.

“The elect­or­ate of North Car­o­lina really is a mi­cro­cosm of the U.S. elect­or­ate,” said Tillis. “It’s a barely right-of-cen­ter state. … When you wade too far in­to some of the more con­tro­ver­sial so­cial is­sues, then you be­gin to see an in­creas­ing amount of op­pos­i­tion.” […] 

Let’s see.  The GOP HELD its legislative majorities and had a net gain of TWO seats on the Council of State.  The party held all of its seats in Congress.  Donald Trump won the state decisively.  AND it’s THE REPUBLICANS that have a problem ???

Pat McCrory’s problems were 100 percent self-made, and they had little to nothing to do with being “too far to the right.”  MORE: 

[…] In par­tic­u­lar, Tillis ref­er­enced the state’s con­tro­ver­sial “bath­room bill,” which sought to reg­u­late which re­strooms trans­gendered people can use. The is­sue drew na­tion­al cri­ti­cism and cost Re­pub­lic­ans the gov­ernor­ship, even as the state voted de­cis­ively for Don­ald Trump.

“We had the fast­est-grow­ing state eco­nomy in the U.S, we were in the fourth quart­ile by just about every oth­er meas­ure when I took the gavel in 2011, … one of the most pop­u­lar places for busi­ness re­lo­ca­tion,” Tillis said of the state. “All that should have been the mes­sage and it wasn’t; it was over­shad­owed.”

Tillis, who spent four years as speak­er of a ram­bunc­tious state House, is de­term­ined not to let that hap­pen in the Sen­ate. And as the first-term Re­pub­lic­an, whose met­eor­ic rise in North Car­o­lina earned him the fa­vor of na­tion­al Re­pub­lic­ans in his 2014 race, settles in­to the slower pace of the up­per cham­ber, he’s carving out a role as a bridge-build­er, de­term­ined to make sure Re­pub­lic­ans stay on track.

“I’m here to find those people who are genu­inely in­ter­ested in solv­ing prob­lems,” said Tillis, who reg­u­larly re­quests get-to-know-you meet­ings with mem­bers of both parties.[…] 

Okay.  I guess he was just lying kidding with all that talk during the campaign about stopping Obama and killing Obamacare. MORE: 

[…] He’s already met with two in­com­ing Sen­ate Demo­crats, in­clud­ing Sen.-elect Kamala Har­ris of Cali­for­nia. Tillis said he was eager to work with the former state at­tor­ney gen­er­al on sen­ten­cing and ju­di­cial re­form—an is­sue on which he’s already co­sponsored bi­par­tis­an le­gis­la­tion. 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.

*Yep. Bringing California’s criminal justice practices nationwide.  THAT is why we sent him to DC.  Yep.  That’s it.*

[…] Tillis, who be­came speak­er after just four years in the state House, had floated the idea of chair­ing the Na­tion­al Re­pub­lic­an Sen­at­ori­al Com­mit­tee be­fore even win­ning his Sen­ate seat in 2014. He was even­tu­ally passed over by an­oth­er class-of-2014 sen­at­or, Col­or­ado’s Cory Gard­ner, and will in­stead serve as the com­mit­tee’s fin­ance chair[...]

Oh, finance chairman.  Of cour$$$$$$$$$$$$$e …

[…] Still, Tillis’s col­leagues sus­pect he’s on a path for lead­er­ship. And des­pite a rap­id ca­reer as­cent in both con­sult­ing and the state le­gis­lature, Tillis in­sisted he wasn’t de­terred by the Sen­ate’s slow-mov­ing pace.

In a brief hall­way in­ter­view, North Car­o­lina’s seni­or sen­at­or, Richard Burr, lauded Tillis’s quick rise in North Car­o­lina, call­ing him a “nat­ur­al lead­er” with tons of ex­per­i­ence. But, Burr said: “Thom is also in a class where the en­tire class, in their own way, brings a unique tal­ent to the Sen­ate.”

If Tillis does run again, a re­cord of bi­par­tis­an­ship will be a help­ful pitch in a state that’s ex­pec­ted to turn blu­er in com­ing years. North Car­o­lina’s rap­idly shift­ing demo­graph­ics have made it a con­sist­ently ap­peal­ing tar­get for Demo­crats, even after some re­cent fail­ures.

“This idea of these states like a North Car­o­lina that are purple states destined to be blue, I think may be work­ing on an as­sump­tion that doesn’t have to be true,” Tillis said. He lis­ted strong na­tion­al de­fense, lim­ited gov­ern­ment, and even Second Amend­ment and an­ti­abor­tion meas­ures as policies the party can move for­ward on if it does so care­fully, and with al­lies from across the aisle.

*Yep, that’s why we voted you in — to “cross the aisle.”   I am suuuuuuure there are plenty of Democrat politicians out there ready to shrink the government, protect our 2nd Amendment rights and stop the government subsidy of baby-butchering. LOADS.*

“I think for this op­por­tun­ity that we now have at the na­tion­al level, we have to be very meas­ured and very meth­od­ic­al in the way that we im­ple­ment a re­form agenda,” he ad­ded.

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.

How about using your position on the judiciary committee to weed out the ideologues who make law up off the top of their heads????

In the Sen­ate, he poin­ted to im­mig­ra­tion re­form as an is­sue he would push his party to be stra­tegic about. Shy of “am­nesty,” he said he’s open to pro­pos­als from either party for what to do with the mil­lions of people liv­ing in the coun­try il­leg­ally.

“It takes a cer­tain amount of push­back by those of us who are in­tent on mak­ing sure that we con­tin­ue to do free-mar­ket, lim­ited-gov­ern­ment, busi­ness-friendly policies and keep that in the fore­front,” said Tillis. “And you’ll take some cri­ti­cism for that.”