RALEIGH Two years ago, Ric Killian was dodging mortar rounds as an Army Reserve officer based near Baghdad.
Now the Charlotte Republican has been taking fire – some from friendly forces – in the General Assembly.
Killian’s third term in the N.C. House is his highest-profile yet, elevated by his party’s rise to power and his own appetite for controversial issues.
“Clearly I’m trying to do some bigger things,” he says. “I’m not afraid to take risks.”
Killian, 46, raised eyebrows after the election when he ran as a dark horse candidate for speaker, losing to fellow Mecklenburg County Republican Thom Tillis.
Now he’s co-sponsoring a bill that would require a photo ID for voting and, late last week, opposed a watered-down version some Republicans back as a compromise.
And he’s leading the charge against $461 million in federal grants for high-speed rail, money proponents say would create 4,400 jobs statewide and bring more than $150 million to Mecklenburg alone. That bill is scheduled for debate in a House committee today.
“He’s not one to shy away from pushing for what he believes,” says Raleigh Democratic Rep. Grier Martin, a friend and fellow reservist. “So I’m not surprised he is standing in front of the train. (But) I think he’s dead wrong on this one.”
Since November’s election catapulted Republicans to leadership, Killian isn’t the only one to flex his new political muscle.
“Republicans like Rep. Killian who have maybe been out of the political mainstream … now feel emboldened to be more open and aggressive,” says Chris Fitzsimon, executive director of the liberal N.C. Policy Watch.
“I don’t think people elected legislators to turn away hundreds of millions of dollars of federal infrastructure money.” Tillis calls Killian “one of the most energetic, brightest people we have.”
“One thing I can count on Ric to do is ask tough questions and expect tough answers,” he says. “And that’s what you’re seeing him doing.”
The rail bill
Killian is a lanky West Point graduate who keeps the academy’s motto taped to his office door. “A cadet will not lie, cheat or steal nor tolerate those who do,” it says, though “cadet” is crossed out and replaced with the handwritten “state representative.”
Until this year, he labored in the obscurity of the minority. He ranked 75th of 120 members in effectiveness, according to a survey by the N.C. Center for Public Policy Research.
Killian chairs two committees, including the Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation. It was there, he says, that he began to question the state’s long-term costs of accepting the high-speed rail money. Nobody could give him the answers he wanted.
“You know how I respond when the questions being asked aren’t being answered,” Killian says. “I think that’s real contempt for the system and the citizens of this state and I can’t accept it. So I filed a bill that’s pretty far-reaching.”
Critics call it short-sighted.
“(The money) is going to benefit Mecklenburg tremendously,” says Democratic Rep. Beverly Earle of Charlotte. “And to have that rail moving from Charlotte to Raleigh (is) a tremendous boost for the state. It’s short-sighted of him to even introduce something like that.”
It’s not clear how much support the rail bill has, though a dozen Republicans have signed on.
However, in a House committee last week, it was Republicans who helped deal Killian a setback.
The veterans’ bill
He’d introduced a bill that would have required the state to set a voluntary goal of awarding 10 percent of any contract to firms owned or run by veterans. The bill, similar to one that passed the House unanimously last year, had wide support among veterans.
But critics argued that the bill would cost the state money to comply with and create red tape for contractors. Even a Republican questioned the burden of additional regulation.
Opponents, including Earle, pushed for a delay. Killian declined. The bill failed.
“I had counted votes coming in, but obviously not enough,” he says.
Killian, a father of four, is a former real estate investor and developer who says now he’s essentially living off savings. A lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserves, he’s working long-distance on a master’s degree in strategic studies from the Army War College. He expects to finish in July.
Unopposed in all three of his elections in his far southeast Charlotte districts, Killian says he expects to serve one more term after this. After that it’s up in the air. But, he says, “my lifetime experience would apply at the federal level.”
Martin, the Democrat and the only other lawmaker in the Reserves, disagrees with Killian politically. But he admires his commitment.
“He, more than anyone else down there, is there for the right reasons, out of a genuine desire to serve the public,” Martin says. “And everything he does derives from that.”
By Jim Morrill
Charlotte Observer Posted: Tuesday, Apr. 05, 2011Published in: Politics