In his 11th term in NC legislature, Tim Moore wants term limits for Congress | Opinion

Tim Moore, the longest-serving House speaker in North Carolina history, wants to limit the number of terms a politician can serve in office.

Not for himself, though.

Moore introduced a joint resolution this week that proposes adding congressional term limits to the U.S. Constitution. The resolution calls for a constitutional convention to take up the issue; the Constitution, of course, has not been amended in decades.

“I have long been an advocate for term limits for Congress,” Moore said in a statement. “In fact, the majority of Americans support the additional measure of accountability for their elected leaders in Washington.”

That’s true: public opinion consistently favors term limits by an overwhelming margin. In theory, term limits can help prevent corruption and promote accountability, and reduce the number of career politicians in office. That certainly sounds appealing.

But there’s a whole lot of hypocrisy to be found here. Moore, whether he admits it or not, is a career politician. He has been a member of the state House of Representatives since 2003. That’s 11 terms as a state legislator, and he is currently serving a record fifth term as speaker. It’s a classic case of “rules for thee, but not for me.”

As one of the most powerful lawmakers in the state, Moore has more important things to worry about here at home than term limits in Congress. But this not the first time that Moore has proposed a resolution supporting term limits (the last resolution passed the state House but died in the state Senate). He’s even received an award for being a “champion of term limits.” But a joint resolution is, at best, symbolic — empty words with no real action behind them. It’s throwing your support behind something you acknowledge you have no power to change.

But Moore does have the power to change state laws. If term limits are such a good idea, why doesn’t Moore push to implement them at the state level? Of course, that would require giving up the immense amount of power he’s amassed throughout his political career as opposed to just signing a non-binding resolution.

In the statement, Moore also said that term limits would pave the way for “more competitive elections” and “shift power from special interests back to the people.” That sure sounds like something we could use in North Carolina.