Timothy Keith Moore (born October 2, 1970) is an American attorney and politician who has been the speaker of the North Carolina House of Representatives since 2015. A Republican, Moore represents the 111th State House District, which includes Cleveland County. Moore was first elected to the state House in 2002.
Early life and education
Moore was born on October 2, 1970, in Kings Mountain, North Carolina, in the western part of the state. As a teenager, Moore worked at the state General Assembly as a page, later interning for a state senator.
Moore first attended Campbell College, where he joined the College Republicans. After two years he transferred to University of North Carolina, where he completed a B.A. in 1992. He was active in the student government at both colleges. He took a fight to the UNC student Supreme Court in an effort to add more members to the Student Congress. In 1995, Moore graduated from the Oklahoma City University School of Law.
Legal and business career
In 1995, Moore joined a law firm in the Cleveland County town of Shelby. He opened his own law practice in Kings Mountain in 2009, representing business and individual clients.
In 2015, Moore was hired by the Cleveland County Commission as an attorney for the county, serving in this role simultaneously with his position as speaker of the state House.
Moore co-owns 67 Motors, a Forsyth County metal recycling business.
Early political career
When Moore was 26, he was elected chair of the Cleveland County Republican Party in 1997. That same year, he was also appointed to the UNC Board of Governors; he was the youngest person to be appointed to that position.
North Carolina House of Representatives
Moore was first elected to the North Carolina House of Representatives in 2002, after defeating the incumbent House Majority Whip, Democratic Representative Andy Dedmon. A staunch conservative Republican, Moore spent his first four terms in office in the minority party, as Democrats then controlled the House. In 2010, the Republicans won control of the House, and Speaker Thom Tillis appointed Moore to the powerful post of chairman of the Rules Committee, where he became known for abruptly cutting off many floor debates.
As part of the Republican leadership team in the House, Moore helped pass "sweeping legislation to lower taxes on business, tighten rules on abortion and voting, and decline to extend Medicaid coverage to 500,000 uninsured North Carolinians." Moore opposes same-sex marriage, supported a state constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage in 2012, and joined legal efforts to defend the ban. However, in 2017, when a group of the state House's most conservative Republicans proposed legislation that would declare "null and void" the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) (which held that there is a constitutional right to same-sex marriage), Moore blocked the bill from advancing in the state House.
In 2014 Moore was one of the state House's biggest campaign fundraisers. His skill at fundraising for the Republican Party contributed to his election as speaker of the North Carolina House in 2015.
Moore and State Senator Harry Brown were the top two North Carolina lawmakers to gain substantial earmarked funding for their districts in the 2015 state budget, securing a collective total of $19 million. Moore defended his use of earmarks for projects in his district.
Speaker of the House
Moore was a sponsor in 2016 of House Bill 2, a controversial "bathroom bill" barring transgender individuals from using bathrooms that conform to their gender identity. After the U.S. Department of Justice said that the legislation violated federal anti-discrimination law and demanded that the state cease implementation, Moore rejected the DOJ's position and accused the Obama administration of "bullying", saying, "The deadline will come and go. We will take no action."
Moore has opposed curbs on gerrymandering in North Carolina. In a legal suit against partisan gerrymandering in the state, Moore and his state Senate counterpart (Republican Phil Berger) urged the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a lower court's ruling that the partisan gerrymandering of North Carolina's congressional districts was unconstitutional.
In 2018, Moore won a third term as speaker of the House.