John Railey: Tillis, Perdue just may make history together

State House Speaker Thom Tillis, under attack by many liberals for leading the way in severe cuts to public education, is on the verge of making state history in a positive, bipartisan way – with the Democratic governor who has lashed out at him on those cuts.

If his plan works, this coming session of the legislature will finally approve compensation for the living victims of the state's forced-sterilization program that hustled more than 7,600 men, women and children into operating rooms from 1929 through 1974 to "better society" and thin the welfare rolls. The state that ran one of the most aggressive sterilization programs in America would make worldwide headlines as the first state to compensate sterilization victims.

That is, if the Republican speaker can overcome several big hurdles, the largest of which is cooperating with Gov. Bev Perdue, who has been working on her own plan for compensation. That part may have gotten easier with Perdue's announcement last week that she is not seeking re-election. Before, Republicans might have been scared of helping her achieve compensation, fearing she might claim it as a political win. She might have felt the same way about Republicans. Now, hopefully, both sides will work together for the victims.

Victims such as 73-year-old Annie Buelin of Surry County hope the politicians will finally come through for them. "I just think they need to have some common sense and try to put themselves in my place, to see how they would feel if it happened to them," Annie, who was sterilized when she was 13, told me last week.

The other day, I talked for about an hour with Tillis about his plan. "If we fail to ratify legislation in the short session," he said, "I will consider it a personal failure."

And Tillis does not like failure. A successful businessman, he rose to the top of the House in just a few terms. But some in the old guard of his own party resent his rapid rise and aggressive style. He realizes that he needs their support, as well as Democratic support, to get compensation passed.

"One thing I'm really trying to do is not make this a political thing," Tillis said. "I want to manage the emotions around it. … I want to manage this very tightly. So we don't get distracted and fail to deliver."

Despite years of trying by Rep. Larry Womble of Winston-Salem, who championed compensation soon after the Journal in 2002 revealed the inner workings of the sterilization program, the issue has never made it to the House floor. And if Tillis succeeds in getting the House to approve it, the Senate still has to approve as well.

Phil Berger, the Senate president pro tem, told me several weeks ago that he supports compensation. Tillis has been far more vocal about compensation. He and Berger are not particularly close. And if the House and Senate approve compensation, Perdue would still have to sign it into law, provided both chambers capitalize on their momentum and get it to Perdue before she leaves office in December.

Tillis said he plans to talk to Perdue "with an eye toward having a consensus" on sterilization compensation.

In its final report released Friday, Perdue's task force repeated its recommendation of $50,000 for each living victim. Tillis won't yet say what he thinks the figure should be. But he emphasizes that the victims definitely need to be compensated. Tillis is Catholic. But he said that "aside from the moral issues that this program raised — and they are numerous — I've tried to really emphasize the argument of government taking from somebody the most precious piece of property they have, their body, or parts of it. I've tried to articulate this as an example of an egregious violation of people's personal property rights. If you could rationalize a program like this … that ultimately takes away a part of somebody's body, where does it end? You could rationalize that government should be able to take anything away."

Tillis has met and listened to victims such as Annie Buelin. "I just admired her grace," Tillis said of Annie. "I just thought that she and most of the victims that I have met or heard stories of, it's amazing to me the grace that's exhibited by the victims themselves."

Tillis said he wants to finally help those victims.

"The main thing is to bring some finality to this process."