Josh Stein announces for N.C. attorney general

A Democratic state senator who spent eight years in the Justice department formally announced his campaign for attorney general Monday.

Josh Stein formally announced his campaign at stops in Charlotte, Winston-Salem, Greensboro and Raleigh. He wants to succeed his old boss, Democratic Attorney General Roy Cooper, who plans to run for governor.

“My priorities are going to be to protect people from crime, protect consumers from fraud and protect taxpayers,” Stein said outside the old Mecklenburg County courthouse.

Stein, a 49-year-old Raleigh lawyer, is the first Democrat to officially announce. His Senate colleague, Republican E.S. “Buck” Newton of Wilson, 47, kicked off his campaign in June.

Stein has ties to Charlotte and the city’s legal history.

His father, Adam Stein, moved to town in 1967 and joined the civil rights law firm of Julius Chambers and James Ferguson. Among the firm’s cases: Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, which led to a landmark 1971 U.S. Supreme Court decision.

That same year Stein’s family moved to Chapel Hill, where he would grow up. He attended Dartmouth University and later got law and public policy degrees from Harvard.

Stein served as legal counsel to then U.S. Sen. John Edwards and spent eight years as senior deputy attorney general for consumer protection.

In a statement, the N.C. Republican Party slammed Stein.

“As senior deputy attorney general for Roy Cooper … Josh Stein was a part of a culture of incompetence and injustice that put politics above the best interests of North Carolina,” the party said.

This story was originally published September 21, 2015 at 12:30 PM with the headline "Josh Stein announces for N.C. attorney general."