Tillis "On The Record" Saturday

NC House Speaker Thom Tillis, R-Mecklenburg, is our guest this week for On The Record. Here's a sneak preview.

Posted 9:54 p.m. Jul 15, 2011 — Updated 9:54 p.m. Jul 15, 2011

Laura Leslie

House Speaker Thom Tillis is our guest this week for On The Record, airing Saturday night at 7:00 on WRAL. He's always a good interview.

A preview:

On overriding the Voter ID veto: "I’m not optimistic. We’re continuing to work at it, but that’s not one that I’m particularly optimistic we’ll be able to override."

On layoffs of teachers and teacher assistants: "In some cases, it may be that they’re in rural counties where they have fewer revenue options, and we need to take a look at that. But they need to have a very good explanation for that, because we’re going to drill down to the budget-level specifics so we can get the answers."

On a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage: "If you have 80 members – and I think it was close to 80 members at one time that have signed it – is it appropriate for the Speaker to not have that heard?"

On his relationship with Gov. Perdue: "We’ve never had an unpleasant conversation face to face."

On the controversy over his staff salaries: "Maybe what we should do is go back to the governor and ask her, is she willing to cut her staff by 25%? Because if she is, I am."

Perdue spokeswoman Chris Mackey issued this response:

"I seem to recall that Speaker Tillis said he would match the Governor dollar for dollar in cutting expenses. We are in the process of cutting $1.4 million from the Governor's Office."

Coincidentally, $1.4 million is actually pretty close to 25% of the Governor's office budget.

I'll post the video here when it's available online.

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