CONTINUING INTEREST IN GOV. EDWIN EDWARDS!

Monday, August 10^th, 2026

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

 CONTINUING INTEREST IN GOV. EDWIN EDWARDS!

 Former Louisiana Governor Edwin Edwards would have turned 99 this week if he had been living. I suppose I knew him more than anyone, having been a political ally, running against him for governor in 1987, and publishing a biography of the controversial governor that  turned out to be the largest selling book  in Louisiana history.

Three reasons emerge as to why there continues to be so much interest in the continuing saga of the state’s longest serving governor.   First of all, he was a likeable rogue.  Even his ardent distracters over the years found him to be funny and highly entertaining. Few came close to mesmerizing a crowd like the Cajun from Crowley. He could have handled a late night talk show with much more pizzazz and humor than Conan Obrien on any night of the week.

During Edwards’ third term as Governor, I invited him to speak in New Orleans to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners as I was acting as host.  A crowd of some three thousand was in attendance representing both regulators and the insurance industry. I took the liberty of handing the Governor a few prepared remarks, suggesting that he tell the crowd what a great insurance commissioner Louisiana had, and a few other bland comments about the state.

He promptly discarded my efforts, made good fun of me, and kept the national crowd in stitches for over an hour. After his speech, a number of those in attendance told me they had heard humor from the best.  Bill Clinton, a number of other public officials, and even Ronald Reagan. None came close entertaining as did Edwin Edwards.

According to author Leo Honeycutt, Edwards is an “enigma.” A puzzling political personality shaped by his background, and a lifetime effort to climb to the top of the heap. Did he cross the imaginary line of political propriety in his public dealings? Honeycutt astutely argues that the line often moves with the times, and can be bent and shaped by unscrupulous federal prosecutors.

Secondly, some naysayers disregard the Edwards years as all negative with no progressive public accomplishments by his administration. There is no doubt Edwards became bogged down in his later terms as his legal problems with the federal government mounted. But a number of more neutral observers will stack up Edwards’ first two terms as the most productive and positive in the twentieth century.

I posed the question of Edwards’s accomplishments to a group of journalists that had covered the state capitol for many years, going back to the administration of Gov. Jimmy Davis in the 1960s. When asked to name the state’s shining period of progress, they all pointed to the 1970s during Edwards’ first two terms. A new constitution, tax reform, a new ethics code, the creation of an architect’s and engineer’s selection board,  taking these decisions away from politics that became the prototype throughout the country, the passage of the strongest public records and open meetings laws of any state, all done under an Edwards administration.

I was hosting a radio show in Baton Rouge this week on WJBO discussing the Edwards’s years and opened up the phone lines for listener comments. Former Public Affairs Research Council Director and President of the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry Ed Steimel called  and said during the 1970s, Edwards both embraced and worked for passage of every one of PAR’s good government recommendations. Steimel also agreed the 70s were a “special, productive time” under Edwards’s leadership.

The third reason Edwards continues to command so much interest is the feeling by many observers that he did not get a fair shake in the federal trial that sent him to prison. Former Republican Governor Dave Treen, now deceased, summed up this prevailing view in the last public letter he wrote as an introduction to the Honeycutt book. “I believe the federal government doubled his sentence from the prescribed five years purely out of vindictiveness. They didn’t like him. That’s not a good reason to double someone’s sentence and is, I believe, a misuse of power.” Even many of Edwards’ ardent distracters agree.

Yes, Edwin Edwards is an enigma. A complex mix of a Louisiana figure who, like Icarus, flew so high with abundant success, then fell for many reasons, including some of his own making. Greek tragedy? Maybe.  In the meantime, the Edwards’ biography fills the gap and paints a vivid portrait of the man who many feel was the most dominant Louisiana political figure in the past century.

Peace and Justice

Jim Brown

Jim Brown’s syndicated column appears each week in numerous newspapers throughout the nation and on websites worldwide. You can read all his past columns and see continuing updates at http://www.jimbrownla.com.