FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 3, 2025
Contact: Amanda Fitzpatrick, Communications Director
Media Inquiries: press@ncdp.org

STATEMENT: After a Career Spent Undermining State Constitution, Sarah Stevens Officially Files to be Newby’s Puppet on Supreme Court

Raleigh, NC – After decades of rolling back freedoms as a state legislator, Rep. Sarah Stevens, Chief Justice Paul Newby’s hand-picked candidate for the Court, is trying to bring her terrible track record to a new branch of North Carolina’s government.

Stevens filed paperwork to run for the state’s highest court, where she will face incumbent Justice Anita Earls, a longtime champion for the rights of everyday North Carolinians and a nationally respected voice for justice, fairness, and equality.

“Sarah Stevens has spent her time in the general assembly chipping away at our constitutional rights and never straying from her extreme partisan agenda, how could any North Carolinian trust her to defend our constitution on the Supreme Court?” asked NCDP Chair Anderson Clayton. “For more than a decade, Stevens has led the charge to take away our reproductive freedoms, defund our public schools, and worked to rig the system in Republicans’ favor by stripping powers away from the governor and allowing extreme partisan gerrymandering. On Justice Newby’s court there are already far too many corrupt partisan extremists – the voters of North Carolina won’t be fooled into electing another lapdog.”

Rep. Sarah Stevens has a long history of close association with Chief Justice Newby and a track record of doing his bidding in the legislature. She voted in support of extreme partisan gerrymandering, restricting reproductive rights, overriding the branches of government by taking powers away from the Governor, and defunding public schools. She even spearheaded the plan in the General Assembly to raise the mandatory judicial retirement age so Newby could complete his term and continue to hurt everyday North Carolinians.

Having served in the General Assembly for 16 years, she wouldn’t serve as a check on its power, but as its mouthpiece on the Court to strip away freedoms and hurt our kids. North Carolinians cannot trust her to be an independent voice on our state’s highest court.