Edwards, Mickey, 1937-

Marvin Henry "Mickey" Edwards (born July 12, 1937) is an American lawyer, academic, and politician. A member of the Republican Party, he notably served in the U.S. House of Representatives from Oklahoma's 5th congressional district between 1977 and 1993.

Born in Cleveland, Ohio, he attended the public schools there before earning a B.A. from the University of Oklahoma and a J.D. from Oklahoma City University Law School. Edwards served as a reporter and editor for the Oklahoma 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. From 1973 to 1974 he served as a legislative assistant for the Republican Steering Committee in Washington, D.C., and he was an instructor in law and journalism at Oklahoma City University in 1976. In 1974, Edwards ran as Republican for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. In 1974, he challenged the Democratic incumbent John Jarman in Oklahoma's 5th congressional district, holding the 24-year incumbent to 51 percent of the vote.

After Jarman's retirement two years later, Edwards narrowly won the Republican primary and general election to succeed him, becoming the first Republican to represent this district in over half a century. During Edwards's 16 years in Congress, he served variously on the House Budget and Appropriations committees and was the ranking member of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Foreign Operations. He was also a member of the House Republican 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 Representative Ernest Istook and former federal prosecutor Bill Price. Istook went on to win in November. The loss was mostly because of his involvement in the House banking scandal since he had written some 386 overdrafts totaling $54,000.

After leaving Congress, Edwards taught at Harvard Kennedy School of Government, Harvard Law School, Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, and the Elliott School of International Affairs at The George Washington University. As a notable dissident Republican leader often critical of Republican officeholders, Edwards has been a regular political commentator on NPR's All Things Considered. His newspaper columns have appeared in the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times, for which he has been a regular weekly columnist, and frequently in such other publications as the New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, San Francisco Examiner, Miami Herald and Wall Street Journal. A well-known public speaker, he has spoken on many college campuses, including Boston 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, the University of Iowa, the University of Texas, and many others.

On January 13, 2021, Edwards published an article in The 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.