Mickey Edwards | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Chair of theHouse Republican Policy Committee | |
| In office January 3, 1989 – January 3, 1993 | |
| Leader | Bob Michel |
| Preceded by | Jerry Lewis |
| Succeeded by | Henry Hyde |
| Member of theU.S. House of Representatives fromOklahoma's5th district | |
| In office January 3, 1977 – January 3, 1993 | |
| Preceded by | John Jarman |
| Succeeded by | Ernest Istook |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Marvin Henry Yanowsky (1937-07-12)July 12, 1937 (age 87) Cleveland,Ohio, U.S. |
| Political party | Independent (2021–present) |
| Other political affiliations | Republican (1958–2021) |
| Spouse(s) | Sue Lindley Lisa Reagan Elizabeth Sherman 2 others |
| Education | University of Oklahoma (BA) Oklahoma City University (JD) |
Marvin Henry "Mickey"Edwards (born July 12, 1937) is an American politician who was aRepublican member of theU.S. House of Representatives, servingOklahoma's5th congressional district from 1977 to 1993.
Edwards was a founding trustee ofThe Heritage Foundation and national chairman of theAmerican Conservative Union. He taught atHarvard Kennedy School andHarvard Law School and was a regular commentator forNPR'sAll Things Considered.
After leaving Congress, Edwards became a critic of the rightward turn in the Republican Party.[1][2] He left the GOP in 2021, and has publicly supportedDemocratic presidential candidates in2020 and2024.[3][1][4]
Edwards was born July 12, 1937, inCleveland,Ohio.[5] He earned aB.A. in Journalism from theUniversity of Oklahoma in 1958 and aJ.D. fromOklahoma City University School of Law in 1969, and was admitted to the Oklahoma bar in 1970. Edwards served as a reporter and editor at theOklahoma City Times from 1958 to 1963, engaged in advertising and public relations from 1963 to 1968 and was a magazine editor from 1968 to 1973.[5] From 1973 to 1974 he served as a legislative assistant for the Republican Steering Committee inWashington, D.C., and he was an instructor in law and journalism at Oklahoma City University in 1976.
During his collegiate days, Edwards was a member of theOU Young Republicans; years later, he recalled that it was "easily the smallest club on campus" at the time. Not long after graduating from OU, Edwards registered to vote for the first time, as a Republican. He did so in an era when the GOP barely existed in Oklahoma; at the time, the Democrats held both Senate seats, a majority of the state's congressional delegation, every statewide elected office, and a nine-to-one supermajority in the state legislature. He recalled that when he registered to vote, registration officials tried to talk him out of it, but he refused.[6]
While working for theTimes, Edwards worked to build the GOP both at the state and national level, serving as chairman of the Oklahoma City Young Republicans, then as chairman of the Oklahoma Young Republicans, then as national vice chairman of the Young Republicans. During this time, he was elected to the national board of the nascentAmerican Conservative Union. Eventually, his party activism progressed to the point that the managing editor of theTimes told him to choose between his activism and his career in journalism; he chose the former.[6]
In 1974, Edwards ran as a Republican for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. He challenged theDemocratic incumbentJohn Jarman, who had held the seat for 24 years. Edwards raised almost no money, and spent only $30,000 for the entire cycle.[6] Despite this, he held Jarman to 51 percent of the vote in what was mostly a bad year for Republicans because of theWatergate Affair. However, Oklahoma City had been trending Republican for some time. Edwards's campaign slogan was "Take a bite out of Big Government" and featured Edwards biting an apple on camera.
Jarman switched parties and became a Republican in January 1975 in protest of several older conservative Democrats being stripped of their committee chairmanships. Jarman did not run for reelection in 1976. That year Edwards defeated former State Attorney GeneralG. T. Blankenship for the Republican nomination and narrowly defeated Democratic businessman Tom Dunlap, the son of the academic E. T. Dunlap, by 3,900 votes. He was the first Republican elected to represent this district in over half a century. However, he would never experience another general election that close in a district that rapidly became one of the most Republican urban districts in the country.
During Edwards's 16 years in Congress, he served variously on theHouse Budget andAppropriations committees and was the ranking member of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Foreign Operations. He was also a member of the HouseRepublican leadership, serving as the chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee, the party's fourth-ranking leadership position. However, in 1992, he was defeated in the Republican primary, by this time the real contest in the district. He failed even to make the runoff, finishing third behind State RepresentativeErnest Istook and former federal prosecutor Bill Price. Istook went on to win in November. The loss was mostly because of his involvement in theHouse banking scandal since he had written some 386 overdrafts totaling $54,000.[7]
Edwards was one of three founding trustees ofThe Heritage Foundation and the national chairman of theAmerican Conservative Union. Along with formerWhite House CounselLloyd Cutler, he has served as co-chairman of Citizens for Independent Courts, a national organization devoted to preserving judicial independence, and as co-chairman with another former White House Counsel,Abner Mikva, of Citizens for the Constitution, a national organization concerned with limiting the use ofconstitutional amendments as a substitute for the normal legislative process. Edwards has also served as co-chairman of aBrookings Institution/Council on Foreign Relations Task Force on Resources for International Affairs as well as the Brookings Working Group onCampaign Finance Reform and for five years as chairman of the annualConservative Political Action Conference. He has served on the board of directors of theConstitution Project and was the director of the congressional policy task forces advisingRonald Reagan's 1980 presidential campaign.
In 2002, Edwards gave a $250 contribution toTom Cole, a Republican candidate for Congress from Oklahoma. According to the Federal Elections Committee this was his only political contribution to any Republican candidate. Thus, in the 30 years since his defeat in the GOP primary, his average political contribution to Republicans has been about $8 a year. In a radio interview onFresh Air withTerry Gross on November 5, 2008, Edwards said that he had voted forBarack Obama in the2008 general election.[3] HeendorsedJoe Biden in2020 and left the Republican Party after thestorming of the United States Capitol, saying the GOP had become "a cult" devoted toDonald Trump.[1] HeendorsedKamala Harris ahead of the2024 election.[4]
After leaving Congress, Edwards taught atHarvard Kennedy School andHarvard Law School for 11 years, where he was the firstJohn Quincy Adams Lecturer in Legislative Politics. He taught courses on Congress, political leadership, issue advocacy, election strategies, conservative political theory, and the constitutional separation of powers. In 1997, he was selected by students as the outstanding teacher at the Kennedy School. He has also served as a visiting professor atGeorgetown University.
Edwards was a lecturer of Public and International Affairs atPrinceton University'sWoodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and a member of the Princeton Project on National Security. He taught courses on "How to Win Elections" and "Congress and the Constitution." He was also a Vice President of the Aspen Institute and Director of theAspen Institute-Rodel Fellowships in Public Leadership.
As of 2009, Edwards teaches courses on National Security Policy and the Politics of U.S. Foreign Policy at theElliott School of International Affairs at TheGeorge Washington University. In 2013 Edwards was appointed aNational Constitution Center –Penn Law Visiting Fellow.
As a notable dissident Republican leader often critical of Republican officeholders, Edwards has been a regular political commentator onNPR'sAll Things Considered. His newspaper columns have appeared in theChicago Tribune andLos Angeles Times, for which he has been a regular weekly columnist, and frequently in such other publications asThe New York Times,The Washington Post,The Boston Globe,San Francisco Examiner,Miami Herald andThe Wall Street Journal. A well-known public speaker, he has spoken on many college campuses, includingBoston College,Tulane University,West Point,University of Notre Dame,Duke University,Grinnell College,New York University,MIT,Georgetown University,American University,University of Southern California, theUniversity of Iowa, theUniversity of Texas, and many others.
Edwards has also authored numerous books and articles: "The Modern Conservative Movement" (2006), "Is Congress Gaining the Upper Hand? – Or is the Power of the President Dominant – A Century Foundation Essay," (2003), "Foreign Assistance and Foreign Policy (The Heritage Lectures)" (1987), "Behind Enemy Lines: A Rebel in Congress Proposes a Bold New Politics for the 1980s" (1983), "Hazardous to Your Health: A New Look at the Health Care Crisis in America" (1972). He co-authored "Winning the Influence Game: What Every Business Leader Should Know About Government" (2001) and "Financing America's Leadership: Protecting American Interests and Promoting American Values" (1997). "Reclaiming Conservatism" was issued in February, 2008, by Oxford University Press. His latest book, "The Parties Vs. the People: How to Turn Republicans and Democrats into Americans" (2012), is published by Yale University Press.
In 2009, along with former CongressmanChris Shays fromConnecticut, Edwards criticized the Republican Party for neglecting what they characterized as the constitutional abuses perpetrated by theGeorge W. Bush administration.[2] He is also a contributor atThe Bulwark, an anti-Trump news and opinion website.
On January 13, 2021, Edwards published an article inThe Bulwark chronicling his decades of commitment to the Republican Party and also declaring his departure from the GOP. He stated that he had left the party due to changes that he had witnessed in the previous four years, principally the claims that the 2020 election had been tainted by fraud.[6]
Edwards was born inCleveland,Cuyahoga County,Ohio, on July 12, 1937, and spent most of his early years in the southside Capitol Hill section ofOklahoma City, where his father, Eddie Edwards, managed a shoe store. When Mickey Edwards was 19, a gunman armed with asawed-off rifle confronted him as he went to deposit the shoe store's earnings at the bank. Edwards told the man to "Go to hell". The man shot Edwards twice near the heart; Edwards was discharged from the hospital after three days.[8]
Edwards has been married and divorced 5 times. He was previously married toMiss OklahomaLisa Reagan, a singer and composer from Oklahoma City.[9] Edwards is presently married to Elizabeth A. Sherman, a professor of politics atAmerican University. Edwards is Jewish.[10][11]
Edwards has three children and four grandchildren.
| U.S. House of Representatives | ||
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| Preceded by | Member of theU.S. House of Representatives fromOklahoma's 5th congressional district 1977–1993 | Succeeded by |
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| Preceded by | Chair of theHouse Republican Policy Committee 1989–1993 | Succeeded by |
| U.S. order of precedence (ceremonial) | ||
| Preceded byas Former US Representative | Order of precedence of the United States as Former US Representative | Succeeded byas Former US Representative |
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