Tillis points to bipartisan work for eugenics victims

North Carolina Republican Thom Tillis is pointing to his work across the aisle to compensate victims of the state’s horrific eugenics program as he tries to take down Sen. Kay Hagan (D-N.C.). 

As opponents try to paint the state House Speaker as too partisan and tied to an unpopular legislature, Tillis’s 2013 push to pass legislation that compensated victims up to $50,000 — the first and only eugenics compensation program of its kind in the country — has won plaudits, even from Democrats. 

{mosads}Then-state Rep. Larry Womble, an African-American Democrat, had fought for eugenics compensation since 2003, during which Democrats controlled the state Legislature. 

“I am a registered Democrat, but I appreciate and am indebted to what Mr. Tillis has done on this particular bill,” Womble said. “There are other things in which I have some concerns about, but on this bill? I appreciate all the leadership and all of the efforts he put forth to get it passed.”

From the 1920s until the 1970s, North Carolina’s eugenics program sterilized an estimated 7,000 people, most of whom were mentally ill. Most of the estimated 1,700 living victims are poor, African-American women. 

When Womble retired in 2012, Republicans had taken control of the Legislature. Tillis thanked Womble for his efforts to highlight the issue in a floor speech once the measure passed as part of the state’s budget the following year.

“North Carolinians wants results in Washington, but what they see now is gridlock. In this campaign, you’ll see us talk a lot about Thom Tillis’s record of results,” Tillis spokesman Jordan Shaw told The Hill. 

Shaw noted that passing the eugenics compensation “required bipartisan leadership to get it done. … Despite the fact that Democrats — including Kay Hagan — had ignored the problem for years.” 

The two are locked in a bitter battle that could be crucial for control of the Senate. Polls show a tight race, and a Democratic internal survey released Tuesday showed the incumbent with only a 3-point lead. 

Hagan spokeswoman Sadie Weiner called North Carolina’s eugenics program a “dark chapter in our state history,” and said Hagan “is glad that these victims and their families are being compensated for their suffering.”

But Democrats have frequently pointed to Tillis’s record in the state’s deeply unpopular Legislature to hammer the GOP hopeful. In their first debate last week, Hagan hammered Tillis on education and women’s issues. 

“[But] if Speaker Tillis tells the whole story of his record, it would include giving tax cuts to the wealthy and cutting education by $500 million, limiting access to the ballot box and rejecting Medicaid for 500,000 North Carolinians,” Weiner said.

Political observers said that the eugenics issue might not help Tillis with African-American voters but would offer an opportunity for him to highlight his record with independents. In last week’s debate, he also joined another centrist GOP push, endorsing over-the-counter birth control.

“He may hope that it’ll have some impact on African-American voters, but what is more likely to happen is that it’ll help him with independents, as Hagan tries to paint him as a right-winger,” said Mitch Kokai, a spokesman for The John Locke Foundation, a conservative North Carolina think tank.

North Carolina state Rep. Earline W. Parmon, another leading African-American lawmaker on the issue, said Hagan worked on eugenics during her time as a state senator.

Parmon was a co-sponsor on a 2007 compensation bill with Womble that died in the state’s Appropriations Committee, which Hagan co-chaired at the time.

Womble said he “didn’t get a full explanation” for why Democrats never passed the compensation bill, but he said he didn’t blame Hagan.

“It’s not Kay’s fault that this bill didn’t move forward,” said Parmon, who said Hagan worked with her to “push legislation forward.”

“Speaker Tillis is deflecting from his horrible record as it relates to African-American communities,” Parmon said. “He even said that African-Americans aren’t part of the ‘traditional population’ of North Carolina.”  

The Hagan campaign has criticized Tillis for a 2012 interview he gave, in which he said the “traditional” U.S. population isn’t growing as fast as immigrant communities. He was saying that Republicans needed to do better outreach to minority groups, but the remarks have still dogged him. 

“While Thom Tillis is touting the passing of the Sterilization bill, under his leadership, the General Assembly has passed legislation that has set African-Americans in this state back decades,” Parmon said.