Watching the new Speaker's words

Editorial by Durham Herald-Sun, January 3, 2015.

When the N. C. General Assembly meets Jan. 14 to kick off this year’s legislative session, Tim Moore of Kings Mountain is certain to be elected House speaker.

Moore will follow Thom Tillis, whose large imprint as speaker helped propel him to the U. S. Senate seat he assumes this month. Moore was the clear choice of the Republican caucus, and with the GOP’s majority in the chamber, the election is essentially a formality.

Moore, in an interview with the Associated Press, had some encouraging things to say about his approach to leadership and his hopes for the upcoming session. Talk is cheap, however, and only time will tell whether the next session will be as bitterly partisan as the last – and, in truth, many sessions before that. Politics, as the fictional Mr. Dooley used to say, “ain’t beanbag,” and we have no illusions real legislative action bears much resemblance to a polite debating society.

Moore talked to the AP’s Gary Robertson about working across the aisle, and cited his record in crafting bipartisan legislation in the past.  He specifically mentioned a 2007 bill, when he was in the minority, that he co-sponsored that toughened penalties for child sex offenders. It passed overwhelmingly with support from both parties.

“I’m not taking time away from my kids and my business and everything else to be up here just to get into political grudge matches,” he told Robertson. And, recalling his past role as Rules Committee chairman, he said he “was always honest with everybody. I’d treat my colleagues the way I’d want to be treated.”

Again, we have no illusions. Moore’s party ardently believes that state government has become bloated and that lower taxes and less regulatory oversight will drive economic development. With full control of both legislative chambers and the governor’s office for the first time since Reconstruction, they have been pressing their agenda with discipline and passion.

The voters have given them a thumbs-up on that, and we don’t anticipate their modulating their approach much. But we do hope that Moore and other legislative leaders will be less prone to the steamroller approach of the last session, and will particularly allow their opposition to raise alarms about the potential negative impact of such strategies as punishing the urban centers that have been engines of job creation in this state.

In campaigning for the speakership, Moore told his caucus “I’m here to do try to do what’s best for the state, to respect the members and make sure those members serve their district as best they can.”

We’ll see in the coming months if he meant that of every member.