Edolphus "Ed" Towns Jr. (born July 21, 1934) is an American educator, military veteran, and politician who served in the United States House of Representatives from 1983 to 2013.

Towns was an administrator at Beth Israel Medical Center, a professor at New York's Medgar Evers College and Fordham University, and a public school teacher teaching orientation and mobility to blind students.

In 1956, he joined the United States Army as a private and received basic combat training at Fort Hood, Texas with the 4th Armored Division.

[16] Towns' past accomplishments include, co-sponsoring or enacting several pieces of federal legislation, including the Student Right To Know Act, which mandated the reporting of the rate of graduation among student athletes, creating the Telecommunications Development Fund, which provides capital for minority business initiatives, and the development of a federal program for poison control centers.

[17] He had been targeted by various Democratic Party constituencies, including factions led by his political rival Al Sharpton, and national and local labor unions, who resent his support for passage of the Central American Free Trade Agreement, which passed the House of Representatives by a razor-thin margin.

[citation needed] He put particular emphasis on arguing in behalf of underserved Brooklyn communities, and has won recognition from several organizations for his efforts.

Towns fought to have Environmental Protection Agency testing in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, including neighborhoods outside of the borough of Manhattan.

[citation needed] Towns delayed the investigation into Countrywide Financial's VIP loan program when he was the House oversight panel's chairman by refusing to issue a subpoena for Bank of America records.

After The Wall Street Journal reported that public loan documents indicated Towns had received two mortgages from the VIP program, he issued the subpoena and his office denied wrongdoing.

[18] In December 2010, he announced that he would not seek the position of Ranking Minority Member of the Oversight Committee in the next Congress, even though his seniority and service as Chair would typically result in him filling this post.