![]() “It takes him an hour and a half to watch ’60 Minutes’” was typical. Treen, the state’s first Republican governor since Reconstruction and a frequent target of Edwards’ barbs. Changing the severance tax from 25 cents a barrel to 12.5% of value made Louisiana the most cash-rich state in the nation at the time while New York City was going bankrupt, said Honeycutt, his official biographer.Ĭonstitutionally barred from a third consecutive term, he left office in 1980 only to return four years later, after easily defeating incumbent David C. “My dad never saw color and never turned his back on anyone in need,” said his son Stephen Edwards, who worked alongside his father in the Edwards Law Firm, according to the family statement.Įdwards seized on an oil boom in 1974 to defeat energy interests and fill Louisiana’s coffers, tying oil taxes to price, rather than volume. According to his authorized biography, his father’s ancestors were Welsh his mother’s continental French but Edwards always considered himself a Cajun. 7, 1927, to a sharecropper and a midwife in Avoyelles Parish, in the region settled by 18th century French exiles from Nova Scotia who came to be known as Cajuns. But the dealmaking Edwards had a cooler demeanor.Įdwards was born on Aug. They shared a populist appeal to the state’s downtrodden, and political fortunes that flowed in part from taxes on oil. Silver-haired and gifted with an easy charm, Edwards dominated Louisiana politics in the late 20th century much as Huey P. I’ve rarely seen a wider chasm between the promise for greatness and reality.” “He had everything, and yet squandered it by devoting much of his time to enriching his friends. ![]() He could relate to crowds better than almost any politician I ever knew,” Louisiana State University journalism professor Robert Mann said in an email Monday. “He had eloquence, creativity, a razor-sharp mind, executive abilities that many lacked, and leadership skills that many envied. Edwards maintained the case was built on secretly taped and misinterpreted conversations and the lies of his former cronies, who made deals to avoid jail.īut the conviction and the numerous investigations and allegations were an unavoidable stain on his legacy. ![]() The federal case that led to his May 2000 conviction involved him taking payoffs from interests seeking riverboat casino licenses during his final term in the 1990s. Infamously, the lifelong Democrat said once said that the only way he could lose to a particularly lackluster Republican was if he were “caught in bed with a dead girl or a live boy.”Ī native of Louisiana’s Acadiana region who swore his 1972 oath of office in French and English, Edwards enjoyed renewed popularity after emerging from prison in 2011 at age 83, with his flamboyant character intact. The “Cajun King” was known for delivering a steady supply of memorable one-liners as well as for his deft political instincts. ![]() “I’ve made no bones that I have considered myself on borrowed time for 20 years and we each know that all this fun has to end at some point,” Edwards said days before he died, according to his family’s statement. ![]() He was 93.Įdwards died of respiratory problems with family and friends by his bedside, family spokesman Leo Honeycutt said, days after entering hospice care at his home in Gonzales, near the Louisiana capital. NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Edwin Washington Edwards, the high-living, quick-witted four-term governor who reshaped Louisiana’s oil revenues and dominated the state’s politics for decades, a run all but overshadowed by scandal and eight years in federal prison, died Monday. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated. This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated. ![]()
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