Rep. Stacey Evans has a long record as a champion for women and candidates beginning with Georgia WIN List board service after law school graduation to this week’s successful approval of childcare and caregiver expenses as a campaign expenditure.
Before she ran for office, Stacey Evans served as Chair of the Georgia WIN List board from 2007 to 2009, receiving the ceremonial gavel from long-time Georgia women’s rights pioneer Mary Long, a plaintiff in the Doe v Bolton case argued before the United States Supreme Court on the same day as Roe v Wade. Stacey joined the board immediately upon law school graduation after a professor serving on the board recommended her.
On Monday, the Georgia Ethics Commission approved childcare and caregiver expenditures “directly incurred because of campaign activity or fulfilling public office” based on a petition filed by Rep. Evans and Republican Rep. Beth Camp. “We are thrilled to see Georgia join the growing number of states following the leadership of the Federal Elections Commission to approve payment of necessary childcare or caregiver expenses,” she said. “This ruling opens the door for more candidates with young families and will lead to policies which better reflect family needs and concerns.”
As they say in the General Assembly: “The lady knows of what she speaks.” When the General Assembly was considering changes to Georgia’s abortion law in 2012, Rep. Evans was scheduled to give birth to her daughter Ashley on the same day the bill would be debated. The late Speaker David Ralston allowed her to pre-record remarks to be shared during the debate – a historic first. Ashley is now entering middle school and served as a legislative page for her mother this past session and both Evans children are familiar faces on the campaign trail.
“As a mother of two, I cannot be idle as Republicans in our state treat women’s rights as a political football and refuse to act as our children are gunned down at school. As a lawyer, a progressive, and a person of faith, I can’t sit quietly by as those same Republicans block access to healthcare for thousands of Georgians and try to strip away our fellow citizens’ equal protections under the guise of so called ‘religious freedom’ legislation,” she said of her legislative priorities.
A native of Ringgold in northwest Georgia, Rep. Evans grew up in the shadow of carpet mills where nearly everyone in her immediate or extended family worked. As a child, she experienced poverty and witnessed domestic abuse. She learned the importance of community engagement as she joined her father in a letter writing campaign to save jobs threatened by factory and mill closures.
Encouraged by teachers, she became the first in her family to graduate from college and then law school. These roots shape her law practice as she represents those who often feel powerless as they stand up to big corporate interests. Following a lucrative legal victory in a high-profile whistle-blower case, she endowed a scholarship for first generation students at UGA’s law school. Read more of her remarkable story here.
Qualifying for Georgia’s 2024 election cycle is just 10 months away and your support helps us recruit outstanding candidates who will be fierce advocates for Georgia women, children and families just as Rep. Evans has been. The best way to protect reproductive freedom in the future is to FLIP seats in the next election cycle.
Please consider a generous one-time or monthly gift today which help us continue efforts to recruit, train, elect and re-elect women to legislative seats! We must continue to Change the Face of Power in under Georgia’s Gold Dome.
