Candidate Biography (submitted by campaign):

Richard Moore began his public career in 1989, as a federal prosecutor in Eastern North Carolina. He then served in the State House of Representatives where he sponsored bills to reform government, expand child care tax credits, and help small businesses provide health care coverage.

Governor Hunt appointed Moore as Secretary of Crime Control and Public Safety in 1995, where he led the state’s emergency response to Hurricanes Fran and Floyd. In this position, Moore also oversaw the state Highway Patrol and National Guard.

Now in his second term as state treasurer, Moore oversees nearly $80 billion in public money and the pension funds for more than 800,000 public workers. Credit-rating agency Standard & Poor’s recently named North Carolina as having the second-best funded pension system in the country for the third year in a row.

Moore has dedicated himself to standing up for working families and the middle class. In 2006, he became the first statewide elected official to call for an increase in the minimum wage. He has championed a national movement to protect retirees and individual investors from Wall Street corporate abuses. He recently authored a set of Mortgage Protection Principles endorsed by a broad coalition of labor and other pension funds that is designed to end corporate abuses in the mortgage sector. 

For his work as state treasurer, Moore was named a Public Official of the Year by Governing Magazine in 2004.

Moore is a graduate of Wake Forest University and the School of Law and has a graduate degree in Accounting and Finance from the London School of Economics. He and his wife Noel and their three children have a home in Raleigh and a farm near Kittrell. Moore is a member of St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in Oxford, where he teaches Sunday school.

Candidate Statement:

As Treasurer, I have been accountable to more than 800,000 public employees--building one of the nation’s strongest pension funds and making reforms that allowed our state to invest millions of dollars in education and health care. As governor, I will bring this same accountability to all of state government.

We all agree on what the big issues are: health care, schools, and managing our economy in tough times -- the big difference will be our approach. The answer is not just spending more money and making more promises -- it's about making better decisions.

I have proposed a major economic stimulus plan that will cut and freeze property taxes for seniors, increase the minimum wage, help us meet the infrastructure needs created by our rapid growth, and make high quality child care more affordable for working families.

My top education priority will be to cut the high school dropout rate in half by teaching real job skills, holding our schools accountable and making community college free for all high school graduates. We will build schools faster and smarter with my school construction plan.

We will make sure every single child in North Carolina has health insurance. We will improve the quality of health care by reducing waste and medical errors. And we will work to make health care more affordable for families and small businesses.

I have a detailed plan to reform transportation so we build roads where they are needed - not where political insiders want them. It's time to end the legislative slush funds and stop making transportation decisions behind closed doors. State government ought to spend less time studying problems, and more time solving them.