The Republican US senator Thom Tillis has been reprimanded by party officials in his home state of North Carolina after his support of gun control and same-sex marriage.
More than 1,000 delegates at the North Carolina Republican party’s annual convention voted behind closed doors on Saturday to censure Tillis, a move that does not affect his elected position but signals strong dissatisfaction with him.
“We need people who are unwavering in their support for conservative ideals,” the Republican delegate Jim Forster told the Associated Press about censuring Tillis, who has been willing to break with party stances on LGBTQ+ rights, gun control and immigration policy. “His recent actions don’t reflect the party’s shift to the right – in fact, they’re moving in the exact wrong direction.”
Tillis, who has held his Senate seat since 2015, does not apologize for his voting record, according to a statement from a spokesperson for his office.
The censure against Tillis comes after Republicans in Texas and Wyoming approved similar measures against federal lawmakers who opposed the preferences of party officials in those states.
Texas Republicans in March censured party member Tony Gonzales after the congressman voted in favor of gun control and same-sex marriage, which Americans mostly support.
Meanwhile, in 2021, Wyoming Republicans censured congresswoman Liz Cheney for voting to impeach Trump before losing her re-election campaign during a primary last year.
Tillis was among just 15 Republicans in the Senate who supported the gun control bill that Joe Biden signed into law last year. The legislation expanded background checks for the youngest gun buyers while funding mental health and violence intervention programs, though – according to the non-partisan Gun Violence Archive – it has not prevented the US from recording nearly 300 shootings with four or more victims so far this year.
He also voted in favor of legislation which enshrined protections for same-sex and interracial couples. His support for the Respect for Marriage Act came about a decade after he played a pivotal role in the same-sex marriage ban that North Carolina passed in 2012, when he was the speaker of the state’s house of representatives.
Tillis also often spoke out against the generally restrictive immigration policies which Donald Trump pursued during his presidency.
His voting record on those issues gained him the reputation as one of Capitol Hill’s bipartisan dealmakers. And not every North Carolina Republican agreed with Saturday’s censure.
One state senator, Bobby Hanig, said such a divisive action ahead of the 2024 presidential election was unwise.
“A mob mentality doesn’t do us any good,” Hanig said. “Senator Tillis does a lot for North Carolina … so why would I want to make him mad?”
Another state senator, Jim Burgin, added: “I don’t think we need to be attacking our own. You don’t shoot your own elephants.”
The Associated Press contributed reporting
