Edwin Edwards

Edwin Washington Edwards (born 1927) is a retired Louisiana politician who served four nonconsecutive terms as the governor of his state. His tenure extend from 1972 to 1980, 1984 to 1988, and 1992 to 1996.

In his first election as governor in 1971-1972, Edwards defeated then state Senator J. Bennett Johnston, Jr., of Shreveport in the Democratic Party runoff election and then Republican David C. Treen in the general election. In 1975, Edwards won a second term in the first of the state's nonpartisan blanket primary elections, a procedure which he had initiated in a bid to thwart the growth of the Republican Party in his state. Treen won the 1979 election for governor in a crowded field when Edwards could not seek a third consecutive term, but Edwards staged a major comeback in 1983 and handily unseated Treen.

Edwards withdrew from a gubernatorial runoff in 1987, and the leading candidate that year, Buddy Roemer of Bossier City, became governor without a majority of the vote. In 1991, Edwards won his fourth term by defeating then State Representative David Duke, then of Jefferson Parish, a former member of the Ku Klux Klan who ran as a Republican but without state party backing. Duke had edged Roemer out of contention in the 1991 primary election.

Prior to being governor, Edwards had been a member of the Crowley City Council, the Louisiana State Senate, and the United States House of Representative, in which he served from 1965 to 1972.

Edwards, a native of Marksville in Avoyelles Parish, served time in federal prisonafter his tenure as governor ended. Known for his arrogant, flamboyant persona, Edwards was released in 2011. He is now married to his third wife.