- [Kelly] This week, a conversation with North Carolina Speaker of the House, Tim Moore.

This is "State Lines."

- [Announcer] Quality public television is made possible through the financial contributions of viewers like you who invite you to join them in supporting PBS NC.

[gentle bright music] ♪ - Welcome to "State Lines," I'm Kelly McCullen.

We're giving the panel the week off this week because we're joined by a very special guest, North Carolina House Speaker and Representative Tim Moore is joining our show.

Good to see you, Mr. Speaker, it's been a few months.

- It has, great to be with you today.

- First time on this show, right?

You've been on others, but this is the first time on "State Lines."

And we get you on as you are heading into your final legislative short session.

You'll conclude that and off to other things if the voters have their way, but let's start out with that.

2024 is upon us.

You've been, that'd be a decade for you as house speaker.

What's it like knowing this is it as a state representative and being a leader?

- Well, of course, very proud of the opportunity to have served now as nearly 10 years as the speaker of the house, nearly 22 years as a member of the State House.

And to be a part of seeing how North Carolina has turned things around from where, you know, we were one of the highest taxed, highest regulated states in the country, to now where we've reformed government, we've lowered tax, we've invested in infrastructure, a lot of great things I know we'll talk about.

But being able to compare that to now, just a real sense of accomplishment with what our colleagues and I, we've all worked together to do.

And so it's time to go do something different.

Of course, I'm gonna be running for Congress, and so we'll see how that works out in the primary.

But just really excited to have this, I guess about 13 more months left as speaker, 'cause we still have a few things to do.

- And you took over for then House Speaker, Thom Tillis, who became a U.S.

Senator, and still is the U.S.

Senator representing North Carolina.

How much of the culture of the House did you pick up from him and continue it versus when a new speaker comes in, it's a fresh slate with fresh leadership?

- So really built upon a great leadership that Senator Tillis provided when he was speaker.

We reformed the way we governed in so many ways.

We became more transparent.

We took things, for example, live on the internet where folks could listen in.

In fact, one thing we've done to expand that is folks can watch us live now, live stream the whole time.

But all the legislation is uploaded immediately, amendments.

So someone can be sitting in the far-flung corners of North Carolina and understand everything that's going on in the legislature.

Really proud, you know, to have built upon where that started going back from the old days of the three-ring binders and the papers.

And when we would get amendments, you covered this, we would be voting on documents back years ago that would be coming off the printer and members had not read them.

All that ended when Speaker Tillis came in.

And then, we've built on that as well.

- Half the audience on this show is gonna expect me to pound on you on all kinds of issues from the jump, and it's part of the tone of media and social media.

What's the difference?

Let me ask you about this, I know what Twitter/X says and Facebook, and all those things.

It's almost like hunting or a spectator sport to attack each other.

How's that tone in alignment with how you're dealing with your own caucus and the Republicans, but then you reach across the aisle and work with Representative Reives and the House Democrats?

Is it similar?

Is the media following the vibe that you leaders are kind of giving off down there?

- I'll say the reality in terms of what happens is that most things are bipartisan.

Most bills that we deal with, most issues, there's not a partisan divide.

But the things that folks hear about in the media are where there are those disagreements.

And I will tell you that, I would ask folks watching, just think about when you see someone who will post something online attacking someone's character, just viciously attacking them, would they really say that to that person if they talked to them?

And I think that's part of what's happened with social media, the 24/7 cycle, the Twitters, the Instagram, all of that stuff, is it has made it more of a sport, unfortunately, for some to just go out and engage and just attack, and not even really debate names.

Sometimes it feels like more like middle school, it's just name calling, and it's very unfortunate when it happens.

And so we try to stay above all of that, but that's just part that just seems to be out there.

- If you were an exiled speaker, but you weren't looking to stay in political office down the road, what would you say to the average person when they go, "You know, I enjoy what I read, people agree with me, and you're either the best person that's ever helped run North Carolina, or the worst," how do we balance out our intake of social media and news versus either writing your office or going to the local legislator to get their opinion firsthand, provided you could actually get that from them?

- Well, one that, as I mentioned, we try to be very transparent in what the legislature does.

And we get that information out there in terms of, you know, nonpartisan news releases, making sure the constituents, the voters, have access to what legislation's being taking up.

And then, also, I think it's very important, I've had this conversation with my sons, don't just read one point of view.

If you're conservative, don't just watch Fox News, or Newsmax, or OAN.

Go see what the folks on maybe MSNBC are saying, or CNN, whatever, you know, pick your angle you wanna go at, but at least know what the other side is saying and what folks are hearing.

Because what I've found is that it allows you, if you can understand the perspective of where someone is coming from who does not agree with you, it really makes you more informed and better able to understand the full prospects and the full depth of some issues, at least it always has for me.

- And the power dynamic in the North Carolina House was one of a super majority.

National media said that Representative Cotham's switch from Democrat to Republican is what made it a super majority.

But I think in practice it was a super majority before she made the party switch, at least it appeared that way.

Were the Democrats heard by you and your team?

Because we covered many a bill and it seemed pretty hot down in Raleigh with the debate, and people felt like they were left out or they had no say over some of these pieces of legislation, particularly some of the social legislation we saw this spring.

- So we really work hard to collaborate with everyone, Democrats, of course, as well as are Republicans.

A lot of the issues that we dealt with this year were some very tough issues.

One example, and a bill, frankly, that I'm very proud of is a bill that says biological males cannot participate in women's sports.

- That's one of them.

- And the way that that bill was developed, we consulted with medical professionals, we consulted with, you know, like Coach Hatchell, I mean, female athletes, some of whom have been internationally recognized.

And we tried to talk about it in the sense of fairness, in the sense of science, and all those things, and come up with a bill that made sense, which is why I would submit to you at the end that we had a bipartisan bill that passed by strong numbers over a governor's veto that addressed this in a responsible way.

We tried to really deal with it in a way that made sense, and in a way that we believe the overwhelming majority of North Carolinians agree.

So, you know, at the end of the day on any issue, there's gonna be winners and there's gonna be losers.

But we always have open debate.

You know, we've had a committee process.

I mean, we didn't cut the debate off during the consideration of the bill.

We would allow folks to send forth amendments, we worked through.

So we've been very proud of the transparent nature of the way we did it.

But at the end of the day, the will of the majority carried the day.

- It's easy for a super majority to lose the ability to put the foot on the brakes on certain pieces of legislation.

When you have 70, 72 plus votes on a lot of these bills, is it difficult to go, "Hold on, let me think about this" because you know the bill's gonna pass?

- So we have been very deliberate in the steps that we take, and the issues that we take up, and the way that we consider those.

And so sometimes it's a heated discussion that's out there in front of the cameras and everything.

Sometimes it's a heated discussion behind closed doors.

But I have an old saying that a wise person once told me, and that is, "Measure twice and cut once."

So on all of these issues, that are of significant importance, we really spend extra time to make sure that we're hearing from all points of view, that we're considering the pros, the cons, everything, and making an informed decision.

- How do you know when, personally, from your position of power, you can weigh in on any piece of legislation, all, however many hundreds or even a thousand of them.

When do you know when to weigh in behind the scenes, and when do you know to just let the committee chairs, let the process play out?

- Well, I believe, the way I've governed as speaker is I believe very strongly in the committee process and allowing the committee chairs to work through the process and allowing the caucus process to play out, and I very rarely try to put my fingers on the scales unless it's something that is just vitally important.

There were clearly some issues that I was very interested in, one, for example, was banning sanctuary cities.

I have seen firsthand the problem that we're having on our southern border right now.

I've seen what's happening in terms of drugs coming across the border that are coming to North Carolina and killing North Carolinians.

I've seen what's happened when you allow a criminal element in, like you have with some of these gangs that have come in.

And so I have definitely leaned in on issues that I believe are very important.

And so one of those was on really insisting that we comply with immigration law, whether it's requiring sheriffs to comply with with ICE, or whether it was really reigning in on some of these sanctuary cities.

- On the social issues, you know, we didn't get a budget until, I don't know, last month or two when it finally was approved, and there was a heavy emphasis on social legislation including abortion earlier in the spring.

How much did the social issues debate and getting that legislation through affect the passing of a budget when the goal was gonna be June 30th we need a budget for the state, but it didn't happen?

Was there an effect there that you didn't foresee or anticipate?

- No, I'll tell you that the budget process was not affected by any of the other kinds of issues that you've asked about.

The issues that kind of came into play, there was an interest, particularly by the Senate, to take up the entertainment districts and a few things like that, you know, sort of blew up just for lack of a better way to describe it.

That probably had the biggest impact at the very end of the budget.

But prior to that, there was a disagreement on the revenue package.

On the House side, we really wanted to see certain triggers get hit, and then to sort of step down the tax cuts over time as opposed to just a big drop that didn't take into account revenues where you could end up having shortfalls or cause the state to get out of balance.

And the background for that's very important.

You'll recall in 2009, 2010, right before my party came to power, the state was in debt to the federal government to the tune of about $5 billion.

Our taxes in the state were the highest in the south, and were among the highest in the country.

So I was a part of that group that came in after the 2010 election and we turned things around.

We took care of the unemployment problem, getting people back to work.

We lowered taxes, we paid down all of the debt we owed to the federal government.

And by the way, I'm really proud of this, we took what was a $5 billion hole, and as of today, as I'm sitting with you here in this studio, we now have a $7 billion surplus.

That's a $12 billion swing.

And mind you, we also pay for the state share to clean up two major hurricanes that hit the state in 2016 and 2018.

So with all of that background and all of that knowledge of where we are, really insisted that when it came to our tax policy that we get it right.

- What does it take to tap that Rainy Day Fund?

Every year, to your point, carry over from the budget goes into the Rainy Day Reserve, it's budgeted as a deposit.

What situations arise where you would actually tap it?

Because the other side of this is gonna say, "Your school teachers are out there, they need a pay raise, your highway patrolmen, who you've given pay raises too, what's the balance there?"

It seems it's always going in, what makes it come out of that rainy day?

- Well, of course, everyone got pay raises this year.

I think our highway patrolmen got about an 11%.

Teachers got the largest pay raise they've had in a long time.

Other state employees, we were in a good position to do that.

The other thing that we did is we invested, and this ties into to the Savings Reserve Fund.

There's a thing that doesn't get talked about much, called the SCIF, the State Capital Infrastructure Fund.

And I think it's worth taking a minute to explain this, 'cause a lot of folks out there watching may not be aware of this.

We like talking about when government gets it right, this is one where government gets it right.

Years and years when we would go down the road of capital projects in the state, it was about going and borrowing money through bonds, and then putting that money into the projects.

Well, you don't get 100% of those dollars into a project because you're paying interest, you're paying all these administrative fees.

We came up with an idea, not long after I became speaker, to come up with a notion where basically you find a way to pay as you go.

What it required us to do was to set aside money and not spend it, roughly about 4% of gross receipts coming in, to build off of that to do a couple things, to pay down the debt, it's no different than your personal finances.

If you're not paying interest, you can use that money for other things, right?

So to pay down debt, and to look at the capital projects that we're spending money on to put that money directly to pay for it.

So what we've been able to do is allow the savings reserve to grow, but a lot of that is understood that it's gonna be used to pay for a lot of these capital projects.

So capital projects, we're talking about roads, water, sewer, broadband, school construction, community colleges, universities, you name it, these are the things that we wanna take care of.

Now what's happened, just like folks watching this show can tell you, because of inflation and the bad policy at the federal level that's causing this in large part, everything's more expensive.

So we know that it's gonna cost more tomorrow than it does now and that it did yesterday to finish these projects.

So we have made sure that we've got money in the bank ready to go to fund these projects, so that way we don't have to show back up to the taxpayers saying, "Please, pay more."

So we're really trying to budget wisely and I think it's paying dividends.

- Do you feel good about the budget going forward?

- Absolutely, it's a great budget and had strong support, very proud of it.

- I gotta ask you about the abortion debate.

It moved quickly.

It set everything at a 12-week limit on elective abortions.

What was it about 12 weeks instead of 20, 16, or even six, or heartbeat?

- What I insisted on when it came to this entire issue, this was, I viewed this as an amazing opportunity for the first time in nearly a half century for the General Assembly to try to be able to do something meaningful to protect life in North Carolina.

And so, while a lot of folks looked at it as a challenge, I looked at it as an amazing opportunity to save lives.

But the thing that I insisted from the very beginning when we started, I said, "The women in this House need to be the conscience, need to be the face of this issue, need to be the ones carrying the ball on this."

And so we have a number of legislators who stepped up to that challenge, of course, one of whom was a physician herself, and they worked very hard to craft a bill that I understand is now a model for what other states are looking at right now.

It protects life, it puts in the 12 weeks.

It also creates the exceptions beyond that, the four exceptions that are stated in law.

And, you know, while I personally, you know, would like to see even less abortions, but I think right now in North Carolina, where we are right now is a good place.

And, of course, I think the future General Assembly may look at other steps at that point.

But it's a model, it's definitely a model where there's been inaction, for example, at the federal level, the federal level can look to what North Carolina has done on very tough issues, where instead of folks screaming at each other and all this stuff, we sat down and we worked out something that is good policy.

- For social issues, the participation in sports, the abortion law now, is there anything left outstanding that did not get done in 2023 that you can pick up when you resume the legislative session in May of 2024?

- You know, I don't know, right off.

We really tried to have a very comprehensive session.

And, I mean, we tackled the issue of school choice and educational opportunity, and I would point you to how we approached that.

We did so in a way where we continue to invest record amounts in our traditional public schools, but we also invested in charter schools and allowing educational opportunity scholarships up and down the line for parents who believe that their student needs something different.

Because what we've seen around this state, we have kids in school districts that are simply failing.

I mean, I'm lucky, in my community back home, we have some great schools.

Both of my sons are products of the public school system.

I am, myself, as well as the public universities.

But, you know, we have some areas not very far from where we're sitting in this studio right now where those kids in those areas are not getting the education they need, and where the parents cannot afford some of those other opportunities that other folks can, and we owe it to those children to make sure they get the best education possible.

- Where do you lay the accountability for, if you see shortcomings in the traditional public education system?

Where do you lay that accountability?

At the teacher who can quit the job and go work at a private academy or a charter school, of course, they have degrees, or administration?

So where's the issue?

If it's not money, what is it?

- If I had the solution to that question right now, we'd be able to fix a lot of things.

I think the reality is, is that it depends which school you're talking about and depends what's happening.

Ultimately, there has to be accountability and there has to be transparency.

One thing we found during Covid was that a lot of parents found out more about what their children were learning, which raised some concerns about what the curriculum was, because folks were seeing it online.

The other thing, and I'll go back to the Covid, I think Covid and the shutdowns were a complete game changer.

Why do I say that?

Well, a lot of the traditional schools around the state were shut down for what?

A year and a half roughly?

I mean, you had, you know, teaching and distance-based learning and it just did not get the job done, it just didn't.

Compare that to a lot of the private schools, to a lot of the charter schools that may have shut down briefly for a period of time, but adapted and opened back up.

Did you know there are no difference in the health outcomes of students, teachers, faculty, et cetera, of schools that remained open versus those schools that stayed closed.

There were no greater infection rates, serious hospitalization, any of that.

But let me tell you what was a big difference, the schools that were shut down where the students did not get that educational time they needed are now struggling.

The benchmarks on testing are way behind those where the schools stayed open.

- And you gave, Republicans gave the Parents' Bill of Rights, it went through.

- Yes.

- It was a super majority as well, opening books to, figuratively the books of schools, to parents.

How is that going to play out and how will the State of North Carolina in your absence ensure that well-intended parents have the full benefits of a Parents' Bill of Rights without the Bill of Rights being used to bully public schools that most parents may actually like in their community?

Because advocates are out there and they're doing all sorts of things.

- Well, there were a lot of folks who were shocked at some of the material that were in some of the schools that were very simply not age appropriate at all.

- Library books.

- Right, like that, along with some curriculum as well, some textbooks that were there.

And, at the end of the day, parents want their child to get an education, not an indoctrination, nothing else.

They want them to get an education, they want them to learn how to learn, and they want them to learn the core knowledge that they need to know to grow into adults, and that's what our schools should be teaching.

And parents have a right, as the parents of a child, to know what's being taught and to have an opportunity to speak up if they see something that's objectionable.

- Should parents or even school teachers who have been in stable jobs, should they fear this idea that you're giving hundreds of millions of dollars that could be used to support private school tuition?

Or I guess you're putting funding on the child's back and letting them go to where they wanna go.

If you're a teacher and you wanna to have a good career, how do you view that?

- Well, look at the pay raises that we have given to teachers, year after year, these last 10 years roughly, record amounts of investment in education.

You know, the big issue had been, particularly those new teachers, attracting new teachers in, and then retaining them, that's where we knew we had the largest turnover, so we really have invested funds there.

You're talking about substantial pay raises for teachers, and not just teachers by the way, community college faculty, which had been woefully funded in many, many years past.

- You know, your veteran teachers, they saw the percentage a whole lot lower, their pay raise, than a young teacher coming in.

What's the balance on that?

'Cause people with decades of experience felt ripped off by some of these proposals.

- So, and frankly some of those criticisms were warranted.

And so what we saw, 'cause we were trying to approach it from a market standpoint of going, "Okay, this is where we are losing teachers.

We know we need to put some money here."

But, to that point, there were some teachers who had been putting many years in that didn't get an amount that they should have.

So what we did was, if you look at the later-year budgets, we went in and plussed up those teachers that had more years of experience.

And so the reality is there's not enough money in the world to make everybody in the world whole and happy.

But I would submit to you that we really tried to make the right decisions, and I'm hearing positive responses from teachers around the state.

- I have a few viewers that write me every week.

One of 'em is named Ken, he wrote me to ask me about Medicaid expansion.

His point was he had heard somewhere one time, someone who's in the political sphere say, "Lives were lost, because North Carolina did not expand Medicaid over 10 years ago," and wanted an answer to that question.

And so I wrote him back and said, "You know, I promise I'll ask someone who might would know."

That's a leading question, because it came from someone who obviously disagreed with the approach until expansion happened.

What does Medicaid expansion do to our state for North Carolinians?

Is it the end-all-be-all cure for our ills?

And how much of the responsibility now is on North Carolinians to go to the doctor?

- Well, one, we did not simply adopt the kind of blanket expansion Obamacare law that Governor Cooper and others were wanting us to do.

We were not doing that, we are not going to do that.

What we did, however, was make sure that we leveraged additional federal dollars, that we put in place work requirements, and that we, first of all, reformed the way that we fund our state's uninsured population.

We invested in what's called FQHCs, Federally Qualified Health Centers.

We went in and invested supplemental funds to help our hospitals remain stable.

Our rural areas are some of the most challenged areas, so we put funds in there.

And then, we developed a process to leverage those additional federal dollars to provide additional coverage in that coverage gap there.

But at all times to make it very clear that someone who is able bodied to work and support themselves must do so.

- When it came to Medicaid expansion, was it just a virtue of conservatives and Republicans looking at an entitlement that's never gonna go away, so you might as well take the money?

Or, over time, did it become a conservative cause that you could argue, government intervention like this does make sense for the private sector and for private individuals?

- I would submit to you that the way that we approached the coverage gap issue and the healthcare access issue, and bear in mind, we're also, you know, following Covid and seeing what happened there, and seeing the necessity even more of ensuring that North Carolinians have access to healthcare.

The key was, and the challenge always was, how do you expand that?

How do you leverage those federal dollars, but not get drawn into something where you're gonna have this massive bureaucratic entitlement, and you're not gonna have something that's going to be a disincentive to people from getting a job where hopefully they get private insurance?

And so we started with that, and I would submit to you, we found a way to find that balance through this.

And get this, a lot of other states, a lot of other Republican states, are looking at what North Carolina did to build on that because it is a success.

And look, it's what I tell people all the time, if the federal government would do what North Carolina has done, we'd be a whole lot better off.

- Speaker Tim Moore, thank you for your service to the State of North Carolina as house speaker and as representative.

Good luck on your future endeavors, that's another discussion.

And thank you for being on "State Lines."

It's an honor to have you on and I appreciate it.

- Great to be here.

- If you have any questions about this show, you can email me your thoughts and opinions.

Our email address is statelines@pbsnc.org.

I will read every email, the good, the bad, and even the ugly ones sometimes.

Thank you so much for watching this program this year.

We really appreciate it, and wanna express my gratitude to you, our viewers, and we'll see you next time.

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