Associated with National City Bank of New York, from 1931 to 1933, Andrews was then with International Business Machines, from 1933 to 1936. He became district manager of an Eastman Kodak subsidiary, from 1936 to 1946; and was an advertising executive, from 1946 to 1970, excluding his single term in Congress. An Alabama Republican, Andrews represented Alabama's 4th congressional district, since mainly the 3rd district, in the United States House of Representatives. The district centers on Andrews' birthplace of Anniston. A Democratic candidate for the Alabama House of Representatives in 1956 and for secretary of state in 1958, Andrews switched parties and was a delegate to the 1964 Republican National Convention held in San Francisco, where he was committed to the party's presidential nominee, then U.S. Senator Barry M. Goldwater of Arizona. He was elected to Congress on the Goldwater ticket, which easily prevailed over an unpledged elector slate in Alabama. U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson was not listed on the Alabama ballot. Since almost none of the district's living residents had been represented by a Republican before, it may have seemed surprising that he defeated seven-term Democrat Kenneth A. Roberts, 40,143 to 27,800. However, most of the district's voters, like most Alabama voters, turned against the Democrats due to the national party's increasingly strong stand on civil rights. Four other Alabama Republicans were elected to the U.S. House with Andrews: James D. Martin of Gadsden, John Buchanan of Birmingham, William Dickinson of Montgomery, and Jack Edwards of Mobile. Andrews served only in the 89th Congress from January 3, 1965 to January 3, 1967. He and other Alabama members opposed the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which passed after the landmark African American-led March from Selma to the state capital at Montgomery. In 1966, Andrews was defeated for reelection by about the same margin that he had won in 1964. He was unseated by the Democratic State SenatorBill Nichols. Nichols received 54,515 votes to Andrews' 38,402. For a time, Andrews chaired the Alabama Fourth Congressional District Republican Executive Committee. He sought to return to Congress in the 1970 general election, when Wallace ran unopposed for a second term as governor. He was overwhelmingly defeated by Nichols, who won 77,701 votes to Andrews' 13,217. President Richard Nixon appointed Andrews a trustee in bankruptcy court, a position which he held from 1973 to 1985.
Death
Andrews died in White Plains, Calhoun County, Alabama, on September 25, 2008. He was cremated, and his ashes are interred at Grace Episcopal Church Columbarium, in Anniston, Alabama. Andrews became the oldest former member on November 10, 2007, with the death of former U.S. Representative Augustus Hawkins, a California Democrat. At his death the oldest living former member of the United States Congress. Upon Andrews' death, William H. Avery, the Republican governor of Kansas from 1965 to 1967, became the oldest living former member of Congress.
