Tillis was censured for violating NC GOP’s platform. But what does the platform say?
Republican U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis was censured by his own state party last weekend for “blatant violations” of the party’s platform. But what exactly does that mean?
A party platform accountability resolution approved Saturday by delegates at the NCGOP’s annual convention in Greensboro states that the party aims to hold its national, state and local elected officials accountable to the values expressed in its platform, and to that end, “intends to remind those officials who fail in this regard by formal expression of disapproval, showing them exactly why their public comments, press releases, campaigns, or legislation does not align with said platform.”
Before the resolution was voted on, it was amended to include a clause stating that the party “does hereby censure Senator Thom Tillis for his blatant violations of our party platform.”
Delegates who spoke to The News & Observer after Saturday’s vote said they wanted to register their disapproval of Tillis because they felt he wasn’t voting in line with the party and “no longer took account of our platform.”
The party’s platform committee put forth a new platform for delegates to consider at last weekend’s convention, but the proposed changes weren’t voted on due to “time limitations with other votes going long on time,” according to NCGOP spokesperson Jeff Moore.
That means that the platform adopted in 2022 stays in place until next year’s convention, Moore said, when delegates can consider new changes to the document laying out the policies and stances North Carolina Republicans support.
So what parts of the platform might Tillis have violated?
What NC GOP platform says about gay marriage
The censure resolution doesn’t specify which positions Tillis has taken, or what bills he’s supported, that the NCGOP disapproves of. But conservative dissatisfaction with Tillis has been growing in recent years, particularly over his work on multiple high-profile bipartisan bills.
In November, Tillis along with fellow Republican Sen. Richard Burr, who didn’t run for reelection last year and was succeeded by Sen. Ted Budd, voted for the Respect for Marriage Act, which codified into federal law the right to same-sex and interracial marriages. In an evenly divided Senate, Democrats needed at least 10 Republicans to pass the bill. Tillis and Burr delivered two of those critical votes.
That conflicted with the NCGOP’s platform, which says that “traditional marriage and family, based on marriage between one man and one woman, is the foundation for a civil society.”
The platform also says the party supports “actions to return marriage laws to the states,” and reaffirms support for North Carolina’s marriage amendment, which banned same-sex marriages and civil unions, and was approved by voters in 2012, before being superseded by the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2015 landmark decision legalizing gay marriage across the country.
A decade earlier, Tillis had allowed the amendment to pass out of the General Assembly under his leadership as speaker of the North Carolina House. In December, Tillis told McClatchy that it was important for lawmakers to “look at opportunities to lead by example because the country is in rough shape.”
“There are problems that we can solve — yes, it puts you out of your political comfort zone — but it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s political,” Tillis said.
GOP criticizes Tillis’ gun safety compromise
Tillis was instrumental in helping draft and pass a bipartisan compromise on gun safety legislation last summer in the aftermath of the shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, that left 19 children and two teachers dead.
His willingness to get involved in negotiations over the bill early on, and to champion it as a reasonable approach to helping stop mass gun violence, drew the ire of conservatives who said that Tillis was helping Congress enact stricter gun control laws.
In addition to expanding access to mental health care and providing resources to schools and law enforcement, the bill also included funding to incentivize states to enact so-called red flag laws, which allow family and friends to petition a judge to temporarily take weapons away from someone who may be considered a danger to themselves or others.
Democrats in North Carolina have repeatedly proposed passing a state-level red flag law, but the idea has never gained traction in the GOP-controlled legislature, with Republicans arguing that such laws could be abused to unjustifiably deprive people of their Second Amendment rights.
The NCGOP platform states that the party supports the “constitutional ownership, sale, purchase and carry of firearms by law-abiding citizens,” and calls for a reduction in so-called “gun-free zones.”
The platform also recognizes that gun owners “have a right to confidentiality,” and says that “personal information acquired by government agencies for gun purchases and permitting should be available to law enforcement for investigative purposes only and not for public record.”
This story was originally published June 15, 2023 at 6:32 PM with the headline "Tillis was censured for violating NC GOP’s platform. But what does the platform say?."
