Tillis, Thom, 1960-

Thomas Roland Tillis(born August 30, 1960) is an American politician serving as the junior United States senator from North Carolina since 2015. A Republican, he was elected to the North Carolina House of Representatives in 2006, and began serving as the speaker in 2011. He was elected to the United States Senate in 2014, defeating Democratic incumbent Kay Hagan, and reelected in 2020, defeating Democratic nominee Cal Cunningham. As speaker of the state 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. In the Senate, he has repeatedly voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act; he introduced a bill intended to protect coverage for preexisting conditions but it was undermined by loopholes and failed to match the ACA's protections. On immigration, he proposed a 15-year pathway to citizenship for some undocumented youth as a more conservative alternative to the bipartisan DREAM Act. He initially opposed President Trump's national emergency declaration to divert funding to a border wall, but voted for it after pressure from his party. Having previously denied that climate change is occurring, he has since acknowledged it, but opposes the Paris Agreement and the Clean Power Plan.