Stacey Evans

Stacey Godfrey Evans is a former member of the Georgia House of Representatives. A Democrat, Evans was elected to the House of Representatives in 2010. She represented District 42, a collection of Cobb County communities that includes Smyrna and Marietta. Evans was re-elected three times, most recently receiving 73.25% of the vote in 2016. She resigned her legislative seat to focus on her bid for the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial election. She finished second in the Democratic primary.

In addition to serving in the legislature, Evans also founded her own law firm, S.G. Evans Law, LLC.

Evans has received numerous awards for her legislative advocacy, including two Arnie awards, the "Super Woman Award" in 2012; and the "Teach Your Children and Colleagues Award" in 2013.

She served on the Judiciary Committee in the Georgia House. In 2015, Evans helped stop Josh McKoon's religious liberty bill from becoming law. She fought to include civil rights protections in the bill and then joined with the majority of her colleagues on the House Judiciary committee in voting to table the legislation. She was commended for her work by Georgia Equality.

In the legislature, she quickly became known as a fighter for HOPE. She opposed the changes pushed by Governor Nathan Deal and Georgia legislative leaders that, Evans claimed, would push many Georgians off of the scholarship and out of school.

The HOPE Scholarship program began by promising that all those who graduated from Georgia high schools with a B average would be able to go to college with the cost paid for by taxpayers.

Despite the opposition of Evans, a proposal was made to limit the full scholarship only to those who achieved a 3.7 GPA and 1200 on the SAT. Evans responded by claiming that this would prevent many of the students who most needed the help from attending college at all and said in remarks to the House chamber that had these limitations been in place when she graduated from college she wouldn't be standing there that day.

In the end, the proposal to limit the scholarship was successful.

Representative Evans ran for governor of Georgia in the 2018 Democratic primary election. She lostin the primary election to former state representative and House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams, who ultimately lost to conservative Republican Brian Kemp amid allegations of electoral improprieties.