Quick Facts
Biography
Amanda Edwards is an American attorney and politician who served as a member of the Houston City Council. She was also candidate for the 2020 United States Senate election in Texas, placing fifth in the Democratic primary.
Early life and education
Edwards was born and raised in Houston. She graduated from Emory University and earned a Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School. She worked in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina, and as a law clerk before becoming a municipal finance attorney.
Career
Houston City Council
She ran for Houston City Council in 2015, running as an at-large council member and won. In the runoff, she received more votes than the in-coming mayor Sylvester Turner. In the spring of 2016, she authored an amendment to the city's annual budget process to create a task force for innovation and technology. The Mayor subsequently appointed Edwards to lead the task force. This led to the creation of the innovation hub district in Midtown with the renovation of the old Sears building.
She also sat on the High Capacity Transit Taskforce, where she advocated for the creation of high capacity bullet trains that could go from Houston to Dallas in 90 minutes. She also advocated the addition of light rail and rapid transit to ease congestion on Houston's highways.
Via the budget amendment process, Edwards also proffered an amendment to create a Women and Minority-Owned Business Task Force to identify ways to help these firms increase their access to capital and resources. She also led the task force and presented their findings to the mayor.
She retired at the end of her term to run for the US Senate.
2020 Senate race
In 2020, Edwards announced that she was running for John Cornyn's US Senate seat in the 2020 United States Senate election in Texas. After announcing, she was identified by local media as one of the seven candidates to watch along with Chris Bell, Annie Garcia, MJ Hegar, Sema Hernandez, Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez, and Royce West in a crowded race of 14 declared candidates.
Edwards ran as a moderate Democrat. Coming in fifth place in the Democratic primary, Edwards did not qualify for the run-off election.