Thom Tillis

Thomas Roland Tillis (born August 30, 1960) is an American politician serving as the senior United States senator from North Carolina, a seat he has held since 2015.

Following his 1978 graduation from high school, Tillis left home to get a job.

In 1990, he was recruited to work for accounting and consulting firm Price Waterhouse.

He then attended Chattanooga State Community College before receiving a Bachelor of Science in technology management from the University of Maryland University College in 1996.

After high school, Tillis worked at Provident Life and Accident Insurance Co. in Chattanooga, Tennessee, helping computerize records in conjunction with Wang Laboratories, 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 1996, Tillis was promoted to partner.

In 1998, he and his family moved to Cornelius, North Carolina.

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.

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.

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.

A member of the Republican Party, Tillis served in the North Carolina House of Representatives from 2007 to 2015, and as its speaker from 2011 to 2015.

As speaker of the North Carolina House of Representatives, Tillis led the Republican effort to block the expansion of Medicaid and worked to introduce restrictions on abortion, stringent voting requirements, and a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.

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.

Governing magazine named Tillis and North Carolina Senate President pro tempore 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 existing state rules and regulations and limit new regulations to ten years.

After Republican Pat McCrory was elected governor in 2012, Tillis presided over legislation reducing early voting 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 that they "target African Americans with almost surgical precision".

Tillis was elected to the Senate in 2014, defeating Democratic incumbent Kay Hagan, and reelected in 2020, defeating Democratic nominee Cal Cunningham.

He became the state's senior U.S. senator when Richard Burr retired in 2023.

In the Senate, Tillis has sought to repeal the Affordable Care Act, proposed a 15-year pathway to citizenship for some undocumented youth as a more conservative alternative to the bipartisan DREAM Act, and voted for the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which provided state funding for red flag laws, crises intervention orders and school safety resources.

Tillis initially opposed President Donald Trump's national emergency declaration to divert funding to a border wall, but voted for it after pressure from his party.

His views on same-sex marriage evolved over time, and in 2022 he voted for the Respect for Marriage Act, which repealed the Defense of Marriage Act and codified same-sex and interracial marriage into federal law.

Tillis was born in Jacksonville, Florida, the son of Margie and Thomas Raymond Tillis, a boat draftsman.

He was the oldest boy among six children, with three older sisters.

Tillis, his father, and his two brothers are all named Thomas Tillis.

One of his brothers, Thomas "Rick" Tillis, served in the Tennessee House of Representatives.

By age 17, his family had moved 20 times, and Tillis never attended the same school in consecutive years, living in New Orleans and Nashville, among other places.

In 2014, 14 people protesting cuts to the earned income tax credits program and Tillis's refusal to expand Medicaid were arrested after staging a sit-in in his office.

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.

In the Republican primary, he was endorsed by former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, then-North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory, former presidential candidate Mitt Romney, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

The New York Times called Tillis a "favorite of the party establishment."