McClatchy: "Tillis Establishing Himself As A Capitol Hill Dynamo Who Can Deftly Navigate Most Any Political Terrain" | Eastern NC Now

 As speaker of North Carolina's House of Representatives, he presided over perhaps the most sharply conservative legislative swing that state residents have witnessed in modern times.

 But now as a freshman in the U.S. Senate, Thom Tillis has looked for ways to moderate his image. These days, he's not shy about emphasizing that he's reaching out to Democrats.

 That was Tillis, joining Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota in pushing a program to help military veterans sickened by toxins released from burn pits.

 There he was in early 2015, just weeks after narrowly winning his Senate seat, the only Republican to join 13 Democratic senators in sponsoring a bill to establish an apparatus for monitoring conflicts worldwide and detecting early warning signs that might enable the United States to prevent genocides.

 "When you're in a race like mine ... you come up here, the first thing you want to do is dispel any myths about what you may be like," Tillis said in an interview. "The only way you do that is just by building good personal relationships.

 "Now what I'm trying to do is figure out how we continue to translate that into legislative initiatives."

 His shift to the center can be particularly important in a politically balanced state like North Carolina, where voters backed Barack Obama for his first term as president in 2008 and only narrowly supported Mitt Romney in 2012.

 [...]

 Just as he made a meteoric rise from town board commissioner in the Charlotte suburb of Cornelius to speaker of North Carolina's House five years later, Tillis is establishing himself as a Capitol Hill dynamo who can deftly navigate most any political terrain.

 Back home, he's a rock-ribbed Carolina Panthers football fan who owns a pickup truck and likes to go mountain biking, though his daredevil cycling days may be behind him now that he's cracked two helmets and broken his collar bone.

 Wearing a suit, tie and neatly trimmed beard in Washington, he oozes confidence, mixing a quick wit, flashes of fierce partisanship and an eagerness to forge legislative alliances with members of the minority.

 Publisher's Note: The full story can be found at its original source in the Charlotte Observer.

• Contact:
•  Daniel Keylin/Meghan Burris (Tillis)
•  (202) 224-6342