NC COURT OF APPEALS JUDGE, Seat 14

NOTE: You may vote for one. Candidates are presented below in the order they appear on your ballot.

Reason for my Endorsement: Ever since the NC General Assembly decided to make the appellate courts partisan, there has been increased polarization of the state’s courts. In this case, incumbent Republican Zachery comes off as sane and non-partisan and consequently peaked my interest. I became suspicious, however, when I really had to dig awful deep to find out her “values” so to speak because she doesn’t offer much insight on the normal web channels except for the classic pablum of “I will be fair to all” and “I will not be activist judge on the activist court I serve.”  Then I found her endorsements tucked away in a website closet. The bottomline is Zachery is endorsed by NC Values Coalition as opposed to the endorsements for her opponent, Eldred,  from Planned Parenthood, Equity NC, and various LGBTQ+ groups.

Ed Eldred (Democrat)

https://www.eldredforjudge.com/

https://www.facebook.com/Eldredforjudge

Eldred is a UNC-Chapel Hill law graduate who has worked as a trial and appellate attorney in both state and federal courts. He also has clerked for the Court of Appeals and lives in Carrboro with his wife and daughter..

According to his website, Eldred has been for the last decade a highly respected appellate lawyer, appearing in cases before both the NC Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals. He says his race “is pivotal to restoring balance to the Court of Appeals.”

This is Elred’s first time running for political office. But he says his experience gives him a particular perspective currently missing on the court:

“I am an appellate attorney,” Eldred said at a September 11 event hosted by the state Democratic Party. “I’ve represented about 300 people in our state courts, most of them in the area of indigent defense, which is an overwhelming majority of what the Court of Appeals does. … I think I’m going to bring a level of practical experience to help the other judges understand what actually goes on in those cases.”

Eldred recently admitted on Facebook that a prime motivator for his running for the Court of Appeals is his daughter: “When I saw her lose her right to make decisions about her own body, I couldn’t sit on the sidelines.”

Eldred has been endorsed by Planned Parenthood Votes! South Atlantic, Equality North Carolina PAC, an LGBTQ advocacy group, and several other abortion-rights groups.

Valerie Zachary (Republican)

https://www.reelectjudgezachary.com/

https://www.facebook.com/judgevaleriezachary/

Zachary was appointed to the North Carolina Court of Appeals in 2015 by Governor Pat McCrory, then was elected to a full eight-year term in 2016. She graduated from Harvard Law School and received her undergraduate degree from Michigan State University. She resides in Yadkin County with her husband, Lee Zachary, a former North Carolina House of Representatives member.

While at Harvard, Zachary worked as a research assistant for Professor Laurence H. Tribe and served as a member of the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau and the Women’s Law Association. After graduating from law school in 1987, Zachary joined the litigation team of the Charlotte firm Kennedy Covington Lobdell & Hickman (now K & L Gates).

Zachary has served on the North Carolina Sentencing and Policy Advisory Commission since 2017. On her campaign website, she says she has consistently applied the state Constitution to the facts of a case and has never engaged in what she calls “judicial activism.” 

In a right-wing radio interview, Zachary confirms she is running on a ultra-conservative slate, and says it is working well. “You can have a supermajority in the state legislature, but if you don’t have the courts, it doesn’t make a difference. as you saw with voter ID.”

Zachary is endorsed by NC Values Coalition, whose mission is “To be a powerful positive ambassador of Jesus Christ that creates a culture in North Carolina where human life is valued, marriage & families flourish, and religious freedom thrives.” The Coalition is actively engaged in fighting against Critical Race Theory,“ “the current culture of death: Planned Parenthood,” and removal of “vulgar or obscene books from the classroom.”