The American system of constitutional government depends on strong institutions. It also depends on political actors who understand and honor those institutions.
Most important, it depends on average people venerating those institutions — even when the day-to-day results prove frustrating or disappointing.
Circumstances leading to Thom Tillis’ recent decision to retire from the US Senate raise concerns about one key component of our system of government: checks and balances that limit the powers of the federal government’s competing branches.
Tillis’ choice to avoid seeking a third term on Capitol Hill is unlikely to do anything but diminish Congress’ vital role in limiting executive branch action in the years to come.
North Carolina’s senior senator drew fire most recently for his decision to buck President Donald Trump and most Senate Republican colleagues on the so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill.” Yet that defection marked just the latest among recurring examples of Tillis choosing not to serve as a rubber stamp for the president and party leaders.
Each time Tillis refused to toe the line he generated opposition from the president’s most ardent backers.
“In Washington over the last few years, it’s become increasingly evident that leaders who are willing to embrace bipartisanship, compromise, and demonstrate independent thinking are becoming an endangered species,” Tillis wrote in his June 29 retirement announcement.
“Too many elected officials are motivated by pure raw politics who really don’t give a damn about the people they promised to represent on the campaign trail,” Tillis added. “After they get elected, they don’t bother to do the hard work to research the policies they seek to implement and understand the consequences those policies could have on that young adult living in a trailer park, struggling to make ends meet.”
The criticism extends beyond the Republican Party. Many Democrats who praise Tillis’ independence gladly line up to attack colleagues who deviate from their own party’s dictates.
Tillis noted the recent departure of two Democratic colleagues “who were dedicated to making the Senate more of a functional and productive legislative body.”
“They got things done,” he wrote. “But they were shunned after they courageously refused to cave to their party bosses to nuke the filibuster for the sake of political expediency.” After their retirements, “their presence in the Senate chamber has been sorely missed every day since.”
Rather than focusing his ire on Trump, Tillis challenged people within his party who have attacked him for an unwillingness to give the 47th president a blank check for his agenda.
“It underscores the greatest form of hypocrisy in American politics,” Tillis wrote. “When people see independent thinking on the other side, they cheer. But when those very same people see independent thinking coming from their side, they scorn, ostracize, and even censure them.”
“As many of my colleagues have noticed over the last year, and at times even joked about, I haven’t exactly been excited about running for another term,” he added. Choosing to leave the Senate at the end of 2026, Tillis won’t be “spending another six years navigating the political theatre and partisan gridlock in Washington.”
This column does not attempt to defend all of Tillis’ choices.
The disagreement with colleagues that preceded his retirement announcement sprang from concerns about the future of North Carolina’s Medicaid expansion. That expansion marked a major policy mistake state Republican leaders could and should have avoided.
Yet Tillis deserves unqualified praise for standing up for Congress’ traditional role as the lawmaking branch of government. When any president seeks to dilute legitimate congressional power, fans of limited constitutional government ought to support lawmakers who push back.
Tillis has been one of the few elected officials on Capitol Hill in recent years who has demonstrated a willingness to stand up for the legislative branch. The story surrounding his departure from Congress is unlikely to encourage others to step into that role.
Trump supporters and conservatives might welcome the political demise of a senator who occasionally blocks the president’s path. Yet they might come to regret the lost spirit of congressional independence the next time political winds shift in Democrats’ favor.
The real impact of the Tillis retirement is likely to be felt long after today’s political battles have faded away. A Congress full of Democrats and Republicans wholly subservient to their party leaders’ whims bodes ill for the future of American government. A legislative branch lacking the desire to perform and defend its constitutional duty weakens a key American institution.
None of us should celebrate that shift in our political system.
Mitch Kokai is senior political analyst for the John Locke Foundation.
