Waggonner of Bossier Parish, but the Shreveport state senator declined to accept Edwards' offer of a televised debate between the two. Johnston won the endorsement of Edwards' legislative colleague, Joe D. Edwards said that the major philosophical difference that he held with Johnston was in regard to their "awareness of problems of the poor". īoth Edwards and Johnston ran on reform-oriented platforms during the primary, but Edwards was more adept at making political deals and building alliances for the runoff round of voting. His greatest support came from southern Louisiana, particularly among its large numbers of Cajun, Creole, and African-American voters. In the election of 1971–1972, Edwards won the governorship after finishing first in a field of seventeen candidates in the Democratic primary, including the final race of former governor Jimmie Davis and Gillis Long, a relative of Huey Long. 1971–1972 campaign for governor Edwards as Congressman, circa 1969 Years later as governor, Edwards appointed Cleveland's daughter, Willie Mae Fulkerson (1924–2009), a former member of the Crowley City Council, to the Louisiana Board of Prisons. Edwards remained on the Crowley council until his election to the Louisiana State Senate in 1964 in that race he defeated, in a major political upset in the Democratic primary, the incumbent Bill Cleveland, a Crowley businessman who had served for twenty years in both houses of the Louisiana legislature. He was a member of the Democratic Party which, in that era, had a monopoly on public offices in Louisiana, but which fell out of favor in the late 20th century. Įdwards entered politics through election to the Crowley City Council in 1954. Isbell, who had moved there with her husband, told him there were few French-speaking attorneys in the southwestern Louisiana community. He relocated there in 1949 after his sister, Audrey E. After his return from the military, he graduated at the age of twenty-one from Louisiana State University Law Center and began practicing law in Crowley, the seat of Acadia Parish. Navy Air Corps near the end of World War II. As a young man, he did some preaching for the Marksville Church of the Nazarene. The young Edwards had planned on a career as a preacher. His great-great-grandfather, William Edwards, was killed in Marksville at the beginning of the American Civil War because of his pro-Union sentiment. His father was descended from a family in Kentucky, who came to Louisiana during the American Civil War. Edwards, like many 20th century politicians from Avoyelles, assumed that he had Cajun ancestry, when in fact he may have had none. Edwards' ancestors were among early Louisiana colonists from France who eventually settled in Avoyelles Parish, referred to as the original French Creoles. His father, Clarence Edwards, was a half- French Creole Presbyterian sharecropper, while his mother, the former Agnès Brouillette, was a French-speaking Roman Catholic. He placed first in the jungle primary, but was defeated by Republican Garret Graves by nearly 25 percentage points in the runoff election, a sign of Edwards' precipitous decline in popularity due to his felony conviction, as well as the Republican Party of Louisiana's growing dominance over state politics.Įdwin Washington Edwards was born in rural Avoyelles Parish, near Marksville. House of Representatives, running to represent Louisiana's 6th congressional district. In 2014, Edwards again sought election to the U.S. He was also considered to be the last remnant of the political machine founded and led by Huey Long and Earl Long to serve as Governor. He was released from federal prison in January 2011, having served eight years. Edwards began serving his sentence in October 2002 in Fort Worth, Texas, and was later transferred to the federal facility in Oakdale, Louisiana. In 2001, he was found guilty of racketeering charges and sentenced to ten years in federal prison. Īn influential figure in Louisiana politics, Edwards, who was dubbed the "very last of the line of New Deal Southern Democrats", was long dogged by charges of corruption. He served a total of 16 years in gubernatorial office, which at 5,784 days is the sixth-longest such tenure in post-Constitutional U.S. representative for Louisiana's 7th congressional district from 1965 to 1972 and as the 50th governor of Louisiana for four terms (1972–1980, 1984–1988, and 1992–1996), twice as many elected terms as any other Louisiana chief executive. Edwin Washington Edwards (Aug– July 12, 2021) was an American politician and member of the Democratic Party who served as the U.S.
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