Thomas Roland Tillis[1] (/ˈtɪlɪs/ TIL-iss; 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.

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 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.

[7][9][10] 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.

[6] 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.

[13][14] Governing magazine named Tillis and North Carolina Senate President pro tempore Phil Berger "GOP Legislators to Watch" in 2011.

[20] 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.

[22][23][24] 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.

[33][34] On May 6, he won the nomination with 45.68% of the vote over Greg Brannon and Mark Harris, described as a victory for the Republican establishment over the insurgent Tea Party movement.

[39] The company later touted their work on Tillis's campaign, including "psychographic profiles for all voters in North Carolina" that enabled "tailored messages" for particular audiences.

[45][46] Tillis won the March 3 Republican primary and faced Democratic nominee Cal Cunningham in the November general election.

[49] According to Politico, 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.

[55] Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, 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”.

[63] 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.

He was concerned by reports that Hegseth often drank to excess, had made a financial settlement with a woman who accused him of rape, and had mismanaged two nonprofit veterans groups.

"[76][77][74] 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.

"[81][82][83][84] 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.

[85] In 2007, Tillis voted in favor of a measure to give North Carolina a renewable portfolio standard; in 2020, the state was second in solar energy production.

[92][93] In his 2020 Senate campaign, InsideClimate News 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".

[97] 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.

[98][99] In the state House, Tillis supported an overhaul of gun laws allowing concealed weapons to be carried in restaurants and parks.

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.

[111] Tillis voted against the Honoring our PACT Act of 2022, which provided funding for veterans who were exposed to toxic substances during military service.

[112] In 2017, amid moves by President Trump to cancel DACA, 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, as a more conservative alternative to the bipartisan DREAM Act.

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.

[124] In April 2020, Tillis, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee's intellectual property panel, wrote that he was concerned that the Internet Archive's "National Emergency Library" initiative, which temporarily expanded access to its 1.4 million-book collection during the COVID-19 shutdown, violated copyright law.

[131][132][128] After the 2015 U.S. Supreme Court decision Obergefell v. Hodges, which recognized a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, Tillis announced that he would oppose the ruling in his role as senator.

[136][137][138] In November 2022, Tillis called the Senate's same-sex marriage bill "'a good compromise... based on mutual respect for our fellow Americans'".

[143] Tillis subsequently also voted to confirm two of Trump's other controversial nominees: Tulsi Gabbard as the director of national intelligence and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as health secretary.

[145] 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.