Edwin Edwards: How Gambling Brought Down Louisiana's "Cajun King"

 

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Reporters covering the 1985 trial of Governor Edwin Edwards were treated to an unusual photo opportunity one day as Louisiana's chief executive arrived for the proceedings. Instead of pulling up in the governor's official car, Edwards had opted to ride a mule-drawn carriage to the courthouse. He joked to reporters that he "was looking for some mode of transportation that was indicative of the pace of the trial," which would plod on for 14 weeks.

The incident was just one of the many folksy ways Edwards endeared himself to Louisiana's citizens and annoyed those who sought to hold him to account for his widely suspected corruption. He had figured into numerous grand jury investigations, but 1985 trial on improperly awarding state contracts would be the first time he faced actual charges. Edwards responded with decided nonchalance, offering 2-1 gambling odds on his acquittal and suggesting that his health was good enough that he might just be able to endure the maximum potential prison sentence of over 250 years.

Edwards was a deft politician whose ability to present himself as a man of the people made him perhaps the most popular figure in Louisiana since Huey Long. Although his underlying flaws and corruption would begin to catch up to him later in his career, he still managed to stage an unprecedented comeback to the governor's mansion against an unlikely foe. It was only in his later years, with his political career behind him, that prosecutors were finally able to decisively pin charges against him.

From the church to the House

Edwin Washington Edwards was born on August 6, 1927, on a sharecroppers' farm in Avoyelles Parish, near the town of Marksville. His father was half-Cajun and his mother was a descendant of Louisiana's French settlers, a heritage which established Edwards' strong Creole identity at an early age.

Edwards was raised in the local Nazarene Church, which advocated for discipline, austerity, and assisting the poor, along with refraining from vices like drinking, smoking, and extramarital sex. This religious upbringing had a substantial impact on Edwards, as he would become strongly committed to supporting those in need and would frequently quote from the Bible during his political career. He was more skeptical of the church's dogmatic beliefs, and only partly influenced by its position on moral behavior; while he never partook in drinking or smoking, Edwards would later become known as a notorious gambler and womanizer.

Nevertheless, Edwards considered becoming a preacher, and did some preaching in a Protestant church in his youth. While he opted against following this career path, he ultimately decided to become a Catholic at the urging of his first wife, Elaine Schwartzenburg, whom he married in 1949.

Edwards attended Louisiana State University for one year, but left to enlist in the Navy during the closing months of World War II. He was trained as an aviation cadet but never saw combat, as Japan surrendered shortly before he was to be deployed to the Pacific. He was discharged in 1946, returned to LSU, and received his law degree in 1949.

Edwards during his brief time in the Navy (Source)

Learning from his sister that there were few French-speaking attorneys in the city of Crowley, where she had moved with her husband, Edwards opted to move to the community as well and establish a private practice. He began his political career here as well, serving on the city council from 1954 to 1962 and acting as the ad hoc city court judge during the 1950s.

In 1964, Edwards scored a major upset victory when he defeated Bill Cleveland, who had been in the Louisiana state legislature for two decades, to win a seat in the state senate. He would only serve here for one year before winning a special election as a Democrat to the House of Representatives to fill a vacancy left by Representative T. Ashton Thompson, who had died suddenly in a car accident. 

Edwards would remain in the House until 1972, and earn distinction as one of the few Southern congressmen to back the Voting Rights Act of 1965, voicing his approval for five-year extensions of the legislation in 1966 and 1970. This was particularly unusual as 80 percent of the voters in Edwards' district had cast their ballot for segregationist presidential candidate George Wallace in 1968.

Governor of Louisiana

In 1971, Edwards entered Louisiana's convoluted race for governor. At this point, the race involved a closed Democratic primary, followed by a runoff among the top Democratic contenders. The ensuing general election was little more than a formality, as the Democratic Party had solid control of the state and the Republicans had not held the governor's office since Reconstruction.

Edwards managed to win strong support among the Cajun, Creole, and Black populations in Louisiana. He placed first among 17 contenders in his party's primary, then cruised to an easy victory at the general election. When he was sworn in on May 9, 1972, Edwards became the first Catholic governor in the United States and the first with Cajun ancestry.

Returning the support he had received from the state's minorities, Edwards named several Black residents to key political posts. He was also openly supportive of many Black politicians in Louisiana, which helped to expand his base and establish a more welcoming and inclusive environment in the state.

During his first term, Edwards pledged to help the downtrodden people of his state. One of the most important changes he made to fulfill this promise was pushing for legislation that changed the severance tax on the extraction of crude oil from a flat rate of  26 cents per barrel to 12.5 percent of the market price. When oil prices soared during the energy crisis of the 1970s, the change allowed revenues to pour into the state coffers.

The income allowed Edwards to close budget deficits, reduce state income and sales tax, and completely eliminate a state property tax. In addition, it enabled the governor to direct more investments in public improvements, including education, state parks, tourism, and state hospital and welfare programs. 

Edwards also supported a constitutional convention to update Louisiana's 1921 governing document. The convention took place in 1973, with the new constitution going into effect in 1975. It gave the governor broader leeway to reorganize the executive branch, which Edwards consolidated by boiling 258 independent agencies down into a cabinet-style government. The new constitution also had the effect of changing the election process to an open primary, doing away with the clunky old system by allowing all candidates (regardless of political party) to run for office, with a runoff taking place if no candidate received more than 50 percent of the vote. 

The impetus for this change was an effort to minimize the expense of a general election campaign, something the Democratic Party in Louisiana considered to be an annoyance and a waste given the party's dominance. Ironically, it would help strengthen Republican influence in the state since it gave the GOP the opportunity to mount a stronger campaign from the outset. It would also set the stage for Edwards' unexpected return to power 16 years later.

Early scandals

Although Edwards easily won re-election in 1975, his second term was clouded by accusations of wrongdoing. Clyde Vidrine, who had served as Edwards' bodyguard and later his executive aide before being fired due to a questionable real estate deal, published a salacious book in 1977 about Edwards' conduct. Just Takin' Orders accused the governor of trading government posts for campaign contributions and described wild trips to Las Vegas, where Edwards ran up gambling debts and, on one occasion, took five women to bed in a row.

Edwards responded to the accusations with his trademark wit and charm. He joked that the campaign contributions were "illegal for them to give, but not for me to receive." He offered a few quips to the charge of infidelity, suggesting that Elaine knew it wasn't true because he was "only good for four-and-a-half times," or that Vidrine had neglected to mention a sixth woman he slept with after his aide left.

Vidrine's accusations were still enough to spark several investigations into the governor. While these inquiries didn't result in criminal charges, one did conclude that Edwards owed $5,000 in back taxes.

Vidrine also tipped off the IRS about cash Edwards received from Tongsun Park in 1971 while he was in the House. A known South Korean intelligence agent, Park had been accused of trying to bribe congressmen to pressure President Richard Nixon to reverse his decision to remove ground troops from Korea. Several congressmen would be reprimanded in the "Koreagate" scandal, and Edwards' fellow Louisiana  congressman Otto Passman was one of two who received criminal charges in the matter.

Edwards denied Vidrine's claim that Park had delivered $20,000 to him, but admitted that Elaine had received money from the agent. He claimed he knew Park as a businessman, but only became aware of the money he had paid his wife when the IRS questioned him on his revenues.

Vidrine continued to nurse a grudge against Edwards, and would later update and reissue his book after Edwards' trial in 1985. In a strange coda, the governor's former aide was gunned down outside a federal courthouse in Shreveport in December 1986, the victim of the enraged ex-husband of a woman he had been dating.

Return to office

Louisiana's constitution limited governors to two terms, so Edwards returned to private practice after leaving office in 1980. In the 1979 election, voters backed David C. Treen, the first Republican to become governor of Louisiana in more than a century.

Treen was dogged by poor economic conditions throughout his term in office. The recession of the early 1980s caused unemployment to soar, with the state's oil and gas industry being hit especially hard. The governor and legislature struggled to balance the state budget amid declining revenues. Louisiana residents waxed nostalgic about the boom times under Edwards; the former governor noticed, and announced his intention to run for a third term.

Edwards launched a lively campaign, delivering fierce attack's on Treen's administration. One campaign brochure, criticizing a reduction in human services to pay for a 33 percent tax cut, shouted, "Edwards Giveth; Treen Taketh Away!" Edwards declared his opponent "so slow it takes him an hour and a half to watch 60 Minutes" and, during one debate, responded to Treen's accusation that he talked out of both sides of his mouth by saying it was so "people like you with only half a brain can understand me." Confident in his chances of being returned to office, Edwards crowed, "The only way I can lose this election is if I'm caught in bed with either a dead girl or a live boy."

The Treen campaign zeroed in on suspicions of Edwards' corrupt nature. They brought up Park's gift to Elaine, and pointed out how either Edwards or his associates had been the targets of 27 grand jury investigations. Treen also noted how Edwards had been particularly lenient with his pardon power, granting 1,181 requests during the last four-and-a-half years he was in office. 

Voters were content to excuse Edwards' questionable character if it meant there was a chance to bring back the good old days. When the results came in, Edwards had trounced Treen with 62 percent of the vote.

Faced with $4 million in campaign debt, Edwards mounted a lavish victory celebration to break even. He chartered a trip to France in January 1984, charging $10,000 a person. A total of 618 people attended, including 60 from the Louisiana state legislature. During a trip to the palace at Versailles, he commented, "I've wanted all my life to be a king, and now I can be."

Edwards during his celebratory trip to Paris (Source)

There were also lingering signs of corruption within the Edwards administration. Commissioner Charles E. Roemer, the father of his future gubernatorial opponent Buddy Roemer, was implicated in scandals involving overpayments to state computer contracts and mismanagement of the state employees' hospitalization insurance program. Michael O'Keefe, a state senator and one of Edwards' strongest allies, was convicted on various corruption charges.

Then, on February 28, 1985, one of the many grand jury investigations against Edwards finally returned an indictment.

1985 corruption charges

Edwards was charged with 50 counts in total, his alleged crimes including conspiracy, mail fraud, wire fraud, and racketeering. Prosecutors charged that he had received $1.9 million from hospitals and nursing homes while out of office in exchange for the promise that he would grant them the state permits necessary to qualify for Medicare and Medicaid payments if he was returned to office. Charged alongside the governor were his brother Marion, his nephew and real estate broker Charles David Isbel, business partners Ronald Falgout and James Wyllie, businessman Gus Mijalis, and architect Perry Segura.

The state said that the defendants had crafted an elaborate scheme to rake in funding. Isbell would secure the land for new hospitals and nursing homes, Segura would draft their plans, and Marion would send developers in need of permits to Isbell to purchase the land. Prosecutors said that some of the defendants had also established the entity Health Services Department Corporation but concealed Edwards' role in it to outsiders, then promised that Edwards would be able to use his power and influence to give preferential treatment to those who paid the corporation. Once he had returned to office, Edwards had indeed approved five of the corporation's proposed projects despite a moratorium that had been established on granting the necessary permits.

Edwards during his 1985 trial (Source)

Prosecutors charged that Edwards' gambling habits had motivated the crimes, since he had racked up $2 million in debts at Las Vegas casinos. Edwards admitted that he had been a partner in Health Services Development Corporation and that he had made about $2 million in the venture, but claimed that this had been the result of shrewd business practices rather than corruption. Several newspapers and state officials had called for him to resign in response to the indictment, but Edwards said he would only do so if he was found guilty.

During the trial, state witnesses testified to the group's business dealings. Health Services Development Corporation had made about $10 million through dealings with 16 corporations, including five that prosecutors defined as shell corporations defined only by their state permit. Kathryn Lichtenberg, a New Orleans lawyer who had formerly worked for Wyllie, said he had boasted that there would be a "gravy train" once Edwards was returned to office. 

Prosecutors also brought in casino executives, who confirmed Edwards' severe gambling debt and the suspicious way he paid it off. After being returned to office, Edwards had summoned the executives to the governor's mansion and handed over suitcases stuffed with cash to pay down what he owed. The state also showed how Edwards had gambled under multiple names to try to hide his losses, and had never declared the gambling losses on his taxes despite incurring them between 1982 and 1984.

Edwards testified in his own defense, reiterating his claim that he had earned money honestly rather than by exerting influence. The defense team also managed to undermine the prosecution's claim that Edwards' role in the corporation was a conflict of interest due to the possibility that he might return to office, noting how he was fully ensconced in the private sector when the alleged crimes occurred.

Deliberating the matter, the jury wound up deadlocked for six days. Eleven jurors favored acquittal while one considered Edwards to be guilty. The judge eventually declared a mistrial, and acquitted three defendants for lack of evidence.

The matter went to a second trial, where the defense opted not to present arguments due to the belief that the state had not shown sufficient evidence of guilt. Edwards was acquitted on May 11, 1986. Appearing before supporters on the courthouse steps after the decision, he accused the prosecution of being politically motivated and boasted that "this courthouse is a citadel of justice, not a cesspool of Republican politics."

Nevertheless, Edwards' reputation had been badly tarnished. A poll taken two weeks after the indictment showed that just one in three respondents supported the governor, and political analysts opined that Edwards was unlikely to run for a fourth term even if he emerged triumphant from the trial. A cloud of suspicion still hung around the governor; he had been under investigation for potentially illegal ties with oil companies at the time of his indictment, and was later scrutinized for the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries' purchase of land owned by people who contributed to Edwards' campaign.

Edwards' third term was also proving not to be the miracle cure voters might have expected. Edwards was facing the same challenges that had dogged Treen. With the plunge in oil prices severely constraining the funds that had been available during his first two terms, Edwards was forced to implement new taxes, substantially reduce state departments, and cut several programs to make up a $700 million budget deficit. His popularity took an immediate hit. 

The administration suffered another black eye with the 1984 World's Fair in New Orleans. The event had attracted only 7 million guests, 4 million fewer than expected, and was forced to declare bankruptcy. Edwards backed a decision to bail out the World's Fair with $65 million in state funds to keep it solvent.

During the first round of the gubernatorial primary in 1987, Edwards faced a stiff challenge from Rep. Buddy Roemer, who accused Edwards of trying to turn Louisiana into a "banana republic." When the results came in, Roemer had earned 33 percent of the vote to Edwards' 28 percent. Certain that he wouldn't emerge as the victor, Edwards decided to drop out of the race.

Challenge from a grand wizard

Roemer was saddled with unpopularity from the start of his term. Under the primary rules, Edwards' withdrawal as the candidate receiving the second most votes made Roemer the winner by default, despite having the support of only one-third of the electorate. 

Roemer's rise had been driven in part by Edwards' falling star and in part by his promotion of several reform measures, including investing more in educational spending, getting tough on polluters, cutting taxes and reducing wasteful spending, confronting crime, and cleaning up corruption in state politics. However, his progress on these promises was decidedly slow as he faced ongoing fiscal crises as well as stiff opposition in the state legislature. His foes also accused him of being arrogant, antisocial, and inaccessible, as he tended to prefer working in private to the boisterous gladhanding favored by Edwards.

As the 1991 election approached, Roemer made the shortsighted decision to switch his allegiance to the Republican Party. He wound up being contested by Rep. Clyde Holloway, who rallied Louisiana's fundamentalist Christian wing to challenge Roemer's pro-choice stance. The state GOP convention ultimately endorsed Holloway despite Roemer's attempt to get the gathering canceled. Roemer had also failed to notice an upswell of support for an unlikely challenger.

David Duke during his 1991 gubernatorial campaign (Source)

David Duke's youth had been defined by his vocal and unabashed support for white supremacy. He had espoused his love of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis during his time as a student at Louisiana State University, joined the Ku Klux Klan, and become the grand wizard of a similar organization - Knights of the Ku Klux Klan - which he had established to try to cloak his cause in a more legitimate facade.

Duke ran for office several times during the 1970s and 1980s, though the odds of his victory were so slim that several supporters denounced them as little more than attempts to bilk gullible racists out of their money. Yet he won a surprise victory in 1989 when he was elected as a Republican to the Louisiana state legislature from the New Orleans suburb of Metamie. He served a single term, where his signature achievements were authoring a bill to limit affirmative action in Louisiana and leading opposition to Roemer's proposed reform of the state tax system.

By this time, Duke was trying to cast himself as a reformed and respectable man, a born-again Christian whose radical days were behind him. Nevertheless, many of his political positions were thinly rebranded versions of the racist views he had trumpeted as a Klansman. He fiercely criticized affirmative action and social welfare programs, raising the specter of minorities being placed in jobs they were not qualified for or lazily benefiting from the tax dollars of hard-working citizens. Despite the promise of self-reform, critics pointed out how he continued to sell anti-Semitic literature out of his state legislator's office.

Duke's arguments nevertheless resonated with many white voters in Louisiana. When he mounted a race for the U.S. Senate in 1990 as an unendorsed Republican, he performed surprisingly well against Bennett Johnston, the Democratic incumbent who had first been elected in 1972. Johnston won the race with just 53.9 percent of the vote, while Duke earned a majority of the white vote.

As the 1991 gubernatorial election approached, Roemer was unconcerned by potential challenges from both Edwards and Duke. He had already bested Edwards once despite his strong presence in the state, and figured that Duke's unsavory past would fail to make him a strong contender. Early polls showed that 35 percent of the electorate supported Roemer while 25 percent favored Edwards and only 15 percent planned to vote for Duke. By the eve of the October 19 primary, Edwards and Roemer were neck and neck in the polls (31 percent to 30 percent) while Duke trailed at 20 percent.

The primary results were a major shock. Edwards had been the top candidate with 523,096 votes, but voters had also turned out in force for Duke. He was barely 30,000 votes behind the former governor, earning 491,342 ballots in total. Roemer had fallen about 80,000 short of Edwards, knocking him out of the race.

Showdown with Duke

The runoff now came down to Edwards and Duke, and the Louisiana governor's election soon gained international attention. Many onlookers were disgusted by the implications of the race. Barely two decades after the civil rights movement had endured bloodshed and terrorism to topple segregation and advance equal rights reforms, a former grand wizard of the KKK now had a fighting chance to be the top elected official in a Deep South state.

The Democrats mounted a massive campaign against Duke, zeroing in on his long record of hatred and bigotry. The effort attracted a groundswell of support from business owners fearful that tourists would boycott Louisiana if Duke were to be elected, as well as civil rights groups and local newspapers. National GOP leaders, including President George H.W. Bush, also denounced Duke and disavowed his connection with their party. One anti-Duke advertisement featured a World War II veteran in full military uniform, declaring, "I joined the Army in 1944 to fight the Nazis. And I'm going to fight the Nazis in this election." 

Faced with such an unsavory alternative, Edwards' former opponents publicly backed him. Treen and Roemer encouraged voters to cast their ballots for the former governor. Edwards concentrated on appealing to the voters who had backed Roemer in the first primary vote; like Duke, he promised that he had reformed himself. "I don't want to live the rest of my life with a legacy of bad marks I had eight years ago, six years ago," he said.

For many voters, the choice between a Klansman and an ex-governor who had been tried for corruption was an easy one to make, if not exactly palatable. The attitude was reflected in bumper stickers reading "Vote For the Crook. It's Important" and "Vote for the Lizard, Not the Wizard." Edwards got in on the fun, delivering the bawdy remark that he and Duke were "both wizards under the sheets."

Duke's campaign suffered some additional blows in the last days of the campaign. In a fiery debate between Edwards and Duke on Tim Russert's Meet the Press, Duke was unable to answer questions about Louisiana's top industries or how much of the population lived below the poverty line. On November 5, 11 days before the election, Duke campaign staffer Bob Hawks quit and publicly charged that Duke's conversion to Christianity was a hoax.

When the runoff election was held, Duke still managed to win 671,009 votes, including the majority of the white and GOP vote. Yet the overall result was a landslide victory for Edwards. He had pulled 61 percent of the vote, or 1.06 million ballots, to win an unprecedented fourth term as Louisiana governor. 

Fourth term and riverboat gambling scandal

Following his previous rocky time in office, Edwards enjoyed more success in his fourth term. He managed to balance the state budget and oversee modest increases in state funding for public programs in health, education, and welfare, as well as funding for a new arena in New Orleans and investments in existing sports facilities. Edwards also remarried during this term; following his 1989 divorce from Elaine, with whom he had four children, he tied the knot with Candy Picou, a nurse nearly four decades younger than him.

Seeking to diversify the state's revenues, Edwards also worked to bring casino and riverboat gambling to Louisiana. The state struck a deal with Harrah's to establish a casino in the heart of New Orleans, although this venture nearly collapsed when Harrah's declared bankruptcy in 1995; Edwards' successor, Governor Murphy Foster, subsequently renegotiated the contract and the casino opened in 1999. Riverboat gambling had already proved to be a successful tourist attraction and source of income in neighboring Mississippi, and Louisiana established the Riverboat Gaming Commission to grant licenses for similar ventures. 

This process would prove to be Edwards' undoing, although his reckoning would not come until several years after he left office in 1996. The Riverboat Gaming Commission considered 43 applications for 15 available licenses, and all of them had ultimately gone to Edwards' political backers. When investigators looked into the matter, they soon charged Edwards and several associates with a scheme similar to the one the governor had been accused of years earlier: accepting payments in exchange for preferential treatment.

Similar to the 1985 case, Edwards was accused of partnering with others in a moneymaking scheme that rewarded those who paid the price. Prosecutors also accused his son Stephen, former Edwards aide Andrew Martin, Baton Rouge businessman Bobby Johnson, and cattleman Cecil Brown of partaking in the shakedown. 

At the trial, one key witness was Edward J. DeBartolo, Jr., the former owner of the San Francisco 49ers. DeBartolo said that he had visited Edwards in the governor's mansion one night before the commission's final meeting, and that Edwards had slid him a piece of paper with the figure $400,000 on it. "This has to be taken care of by next week or there's going to be a serious problem with your license," he declared. Edwards had also demanded a 1 percent stake in the profits from DeBartolo's casino.

DeBartolo testified that he had subsequently met Edwards in San Francisco to turn over a suitcase full of money. Asking how Edwards planned to get the suitcase past scrutiny at the airport, Edwards showed him a hidden money belt he intended to use to smuggle the cash back home.

The payoff had ultimately not been worth it for DeBartolo. Once his misdeed was discovered, he was convicted of failing to report a felony, sentenced to two years of probation, and fined $1 million. He had also been ordered to relinquish his casino license and turn over control of the 49ers to his sister.

Other witnesses described similar arrangements through Edwards' associates. Robert Guidry, a Louisiana businessman, described leaving large sums of cash in trash receptables for Edwards or his associates to collect. Guidry said he had struck an agreement in which he would pay Martin $100,000 a month in exchange for the approval of a riverboat gambling license. Like DeBartolo, the conduct had gotten him in trouble with the authorities; in 1998, he had pleaded guilty to an extortion charge for paying a total of $1.5 million to the Edwardses and Martin.

The defense argued that the state's case was too flimsy to stand, saying it was based on secret recordings, misinterpreted conversations, and testimony from people who were trying to give evidence in exchange for reducing the punishment for their own crimes. Edwards remained unflappable, quipping to reporters that he could cover any punishment with time served if the judge considered all the time he had spent before grand juries and trials. 

The jury found all defendants guilty on May 9, 2000. Edwards was convicted of 17 counts of racketeering, extortion, and conspiracy. 

Sentencing in the case did not take place until January 8, 2001. All five defendants were ordered to split a forfeiture of $1.8 million to give up any gains they had realized from the scheme. The judge ordered Stephen to spend seven years behind bars and pay a $60,000 fine. The other defendants were ordered to pay $50,000 fines. Martin was given a prison sentence of five years and eight months, while Brown received a five-and-a-half year term and Johnson received four months.

The stiffest punishment was reserved for Edwards. The ex-governor was given a hefty $250,000 fine and ordered to spend 10 years in prison. He began serving his time in 2002.

Many observers, even those who had previously criticized Edwards, felt this penalty was excessive. Treen became one of Edwards' staunchest advocates, pushing for his early release until he passed away in 2009. Those calling for a presidential pardon for Edwards included former President George H.W. Bush.

Later life

Despite the calls for leniency, Edwards served the bulk of his term. He was released from prison in January 2011.

One surprising result of his imprisonment was a new relationship. Edwards divorced Picou in 2004 and wound up striking up a pen pal relationship with Trina Grimes Scott, a woman 51 years his junior. Six months after he was freed, Edwards and Grimes were married. He joked that he would have gone to prison a happy man if he had known he would find new love as a result, saying, "As you know, they sent me to prison for life. But I came back with a wife." 

Edwards and Trina Grimes Scott on the couple's wedding day (Source)

Edwards remained a fairly popular figure in Louisiana, despite the stain of corruption. In the fall of 2011, he was the grand marshal of the International Rice Festival in Crowley. A year later, he was crowned king of the Spanish Town Mardi Gras parade in Baton Rouge. 

Edwards' new marriage to a much younger wife briefly earned the couple a spot in the national limelight, as they were featured on the short-lived A&E series The Governor's Wife in 2013. That same year, Edwards became a father again at the age of 85 as Trina gave birth to a son.

In 2014, Edwards made one last bid for elected office when he ran for a seat in the House of Representatives. The bid was widely viewed as quixotic given his age, his scandalous history, and the shift in the state's political climate that had granted the Republican Party more solid control of its political offices. Although Edwards secured the Democratic nomination, he was trounced in the general election when GOP candidate Garrett Graves came away with 62 percent of the vote. 

Edwards died of respiratory failure in Gonzales, Louisiana, on July 12, 2021.

Sources

National Governors Association, Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, Louisiana Secretary of State's Office, Acadian Museum, "Louisiana Governor Says His Wife Was Given $10,000 by South Korean" in the New York Times on Oct. 26 1976, "Ex-Aide Testifies Edwards Given Cash by Park" in the Washington Post on Jan. 24 1977, "The Healer Returneth" in The New Republic on Oct. 31 1983, "618 Louisianans Go to Paris for 'Biggest Single Fund-Raiser'" in the New York Times on Jan. 30 1984, "Gov. Edwards Today Reviewed..." in the UPI on Mar. 1 1985, "Louisiana Governor Going to Trial" in the Christian Science Monitor on Sep. 16 1985, "Louisiana Governor's Trial Hears Co-Defendant Saw a 'Gravy Train'" in the New York Times on Oct. 4 1985, "Ten Grand Juries Investigate Edwards" in UPI on May 10 1986, "Louisiana's Governor Acquitted in 2d Trial on Fraud Charges" in the New York Times on May 11 1986, "DeBartolo: Edwards Got $400K" on CBS on March 27 2000, "Ex-Edwards Friend Clyde Vidrine Slain" in The Town Talk on Dec. 17 1986, "Louisiana Governor's Mixed Legacy" in The Oklahoman on Mar. 9 1995, "Casino Operator Details Alleged Kickback Scheme in Louisiana Trial" in the Las Vegas Sun on Jan. 31 2000, "Former La. Governor Sentenced to 10 Years" in the Las Vegas Sun on Jan. 9 2001, "J. Bennett Johnston: The Rappahannock Resident Who Defeated White Supremacist David Duke" in the Rappahannock News on Sep. 11 2017, "Edwin Edwards, Flamboyant Louisiana Governor, is Dead at 93" in the New York Times on Jul. 12 2021, "Edwin Edwards Has Died" in Avoyelles Today on Jul. 12 2021, "Former Louisiana Governor Edwin Edwards Has Died" on 4WWL on July 12 2021, "Populist Edwin Edwards, a 'Cajun King,' Loved His Louisiana" in the Associated Press on Jul. 12 2021, "Edwin Edwards Dies; Knew Power and Prison" in Biz New Orleans on Jul. 12 2021, "The Epic Lives of Edwin W. Edwards" in Bayou Brief on Jul. 18 2021, Louisiana: A History edited by Bennet H. Wall and John C. Rodrigue, Louisiana and Its People by Sue Eaton and Manie Culbertson, Louisiana Almanac, 2006-2007 Edition edited by Milburn Calhoun and Jeanne Frois, The Rise of David Duke by Tyler Bridges, Encyclopedia of White Power: A Sourcebook on the Radical Racist Right by Jeffrey Kaplan, Wizards: David Duke, America's Wildest Election, and the Rise of the Far Right by Brian Fairbanks, Reforming New Orleans: The Contentious Politics of Change in the Big Easy by Peter F. Burns and Matthew O. Thomas, How the South Joined the Gambling Nation: The Politics of State Policy Innovation by Michael Nelson and John Lyman Mason

Charles L. Robinson: The First U.S. Governor Impeached

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In the years leading up to the Civil War, the Kansas Territory quickly earned a reputation as a violent and dangerous place where pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions frequently came to blows. While Charles Lawrence Robinson was first attracted to Kansas by its agricultural opportunities, he was also an avowed abolitionist committed to seeing the territory enter the Union as a free state. He was also no stranger to violence, having suffered it and meted it out during a brief residency in California.

Robinson had been active in the Squatter's Association, which advocated for the rights of newcomers to the California Territory who had been drawn there by the discovery of gold in 1849. The influx of fortune seekers led to conflicts with earlier settlers who held claims to land in the area, who in turn enlisted local government officials to aid them. After several months of tensions, including the destruction of squatters' homes and the jailing of squatter leader James McClatchy, two days of riots erupted in Sacramento in August 1850.

Mayor Hardin Bigelow arranged an armed posse after fearing that a squatters' march intended to free McClatchy from a prison ship. When the groups clashed, three squatters and a city assessor were killed; Bigelow was seriously wounded, and later had to have his arm amputated. On the second day of riots, Sheriff Joseph McKinney and several others were killed.

Accounts on Robinson's actions during this violence differ, though it's generally agreed that he was shot in the chest and narrowly avoided a fatal wound. One story holds that he subsequently managed to beat his assailant to death with an iron bar. Another version suggests that he was able to return fire and fatally wound the man who shot him.

Despite this willingness to partake in violence, Robinson was regarded as a more moderating force in Kansas who helped defuse situations that might otherwise have erupted into bloodshed. He would later get him elected governor of the state, though an ongoing feud with a more notorious anti-slavery figure and a questionable war bonds arrangement resulted in an impeachment hearing against him and other state officials.

Early life

Charles Lawrence Robinson was born on July 21, 1818, in Hardwick, Massachusetts. He found his career path while attending Amherst College, where vision troubles interfered with his studies. He decided to walk on foot to Keene, New Hampshire, to visit a celebrated physician named Dr. Twichell for help. Robinson was so impressed with Twichell's work that he decided to leave Amherst to pursue a medical career.

After studying as a student of Twichell's for awhile, Robinson returned to Amherst to work for another doctor. He earned a medical degree from Berkshire Medical School in 1843 and began practicing in Belchertown. He later moved to Springfield, where he opened a hospital, and then to Fitchburg.

Robinson joined the 1849 gold rush to California, though this decision was motivated at least in part by a breakdown in his health. Believing a change in climate would be beneficial, he headed west. Passing through Kansas along the way, he was struck by the fertile prairie soil. The observation would stay with him, helping to motivate a more permanent relocation within a few years.

Although he tried his hand at panning gold, Robinson gave up the effort after a couple of weeks. He instead opened a boarding house and restaurant in Sacramento, which proved successful until it was destroyed by a flood. Robinson continued to practice medicine, and also introduced and edited a newspaper called the Settler's and Miner's Tribune. He was vocal in his criticism in how local officials and land speculators treated the new arrivals to California, and also expressed his disdain for the proposal to split California into two states - one slave, one free.

Following his involvement in the squatter's riot, Robinson was arrested and charged with murder, assault, and conspiracy. While recuperating on a prison ship, he issued a manifesto blaming local speculators for the deaths caused by the riots. After 10 weeks behind bars, Robinson was tried and acquitted. His reputation elevated by his advocacy for Californian settlers, and Robinson was elected to a single term in the California house of representatives in 1850.

During his time in California, Robinson became a strong advocate of John C. Fremont and supported him as a pick for U.S. Senator - a position then named by the legislature. Fremont later returned the favor when Robinson was governor of Kansas, kicking off his 1856 presidential campaign with an open letter to Robinson published in the Free State newspaper in Kansas. "As you stood by me firmly and generously, when we were defeated by the Nullifiers in California, I have every disposition to stand by you in the same way in your battle with them in Kansas," Fremont declared.

Settlement in Kansas

Robinson decided to return to Massachusetts in 1851. He experienced some adventure on the way, when his ship wrecked on the Mexican coast about 80 miles from San Francisco. Robinson helped guard the cargo of gold dust until the crew and passengers were rescued a couple of weeks later.

Showing some reluctance to return to the medical field, Robinson became the editor of the Fitchburg News. However, he soon became concerned that the Kansas-Nebraska Act could lead to Kansas being admitted as a slave state. In 1854, he joined the New England Emigrant Aid Company as a financial agent and accompanied it as it established its first colony in the territory. While the organization ostensibly aimed to capitalize on the financial opportunities available in Kansas, it also made no secret of the fact that it sought to bring Kansas into the Union as a free state.

By the time he arrived in Kansas, Robinson's passion for the medical field had cooled completely. Though his friends still referred to him as "Doctor," he focused his efforts on farming and serving as an agent for the New England Emigrant Aid Company. He later worked as a real estate promoter.

Robinson, along with other members of the New England Emigrant Aid Company, took an active role in establishing the free settlement of Lawrence and bolstering its defenses.  He was among those expressing opposition to the Kansas Territorial Legislature, which was named after elections on March 30, 1855. Pro-slavery forces led by former U.S. Senator David R. Atchison crossed into Kansas from Missouri to take part in the territory's elections and pack the legislature with pro-slavery candidates. The fraud was obvious enough that in some places the vote tally exceeded the entire voting populace, but the legislature was still recognized by the federal government.

Free staters denounced the body as the "Bogus Legislature" and sought to establish their own governing bodies. Robinson became a founder and leader of the Free State Party, and later in 1855 served as a delegate to the Topeka Constitutional Convention, which created a state constitution prohibiting slavery and named Robinson governor. This constitution, along with the convention's petition to be granted statehood, was rejected by Congress.

The year came to a tumultuous end with the Wakarusa War in December. Following the murder of free state settler Charles Dow in Douglas County due to a land dispute, the proslavery sheriff ordered the arrest Jacob Branson, of the land owner who had recovered Dow's body, but not the proslavery man who had killed him. Outraged free staters formed a posse to rescue Branson from prison and bring him to Lawrence, prompting the sheriff to request Governor Wilson Shannon to bring out a militia. The result was an enormous group of pro-slavery men, swelled by volunteers from Missouri, who stood ready to raze Lawrence.

Following several days of tensions, the conflict was peacefully resolved. Robinson and James Lane signed the peace treaty for the free staters, and each man had kind words for the other. Robinson praised Lane for "the thorough discipline of our forces and the complete and extensive preparations for defense," while Lane in turn describes Robinson as a "clear-headed, cool and trustworthy commander." This friendly state of affairs between the two would prove temporary.

On May 10, 1856, Robinson was indicted for treason and usurpation, the charges stemming from the fact that he was the head of a government counter to the pro-slavery one that had been recognized by the federal government. Later in the month, he was arrested, along with other free state advocates, while attempting to travel east to seek aid from anti-slavery governors and other sympathizers. Robinson's wife continued in his stead, and the couple's house in Kansas was burned to the ground.

A depiction of Charles Robinson's arrest. (Source)

Robinson's incarceration wasn't too burdensome. One story suggested that he was held by a cordial judge who, when a pair of men arrived trying to stir up a lynch mob, offered to turn an equally armed Robinson into the street, at which point the duo fled. By chance, his arrest also ensured that he would be incarcerated during some of the most notorious acts of violence during the "Bleeding Kansas" time period, namely the Pottawatomie Massacre led by John Brown and the sack of Lawrence.

In September, Robinson was acquitted after a jury concluded that since Kansas was not a state, he could not have actually usurped power. Though his mission had been delayed by several months, Robinson nevertheless traveled to New York City to pursue the business of the New England Emigrant Aid Company. He resigned his claim to the Kansas governorship in October due to his absence.

After returning to Kansas, Robinson became active in the establishment of the Republican Party in the territory. He also took part in efforts to create a port at the settlement of Quindaro, although this initiative was ultimately unsuccessful.

Free staters had generally boycotted the territorial legislature elections, considering them corrupt and illegitimate, but in October 1857 they mustered their forces and elected the first ever free state majority. They returned to their usual abstinence when a constitutional convention, which had been recessed until after the election, met at Lecompton and decided that the only question that would be sent to voters would be whether the constitution would be accepted with or without slavery. Since free staters considered that a vote for "without" would still allow Kansas residents to retain existing slaves, they refused to participate. The "with" option won handily, 6,226 to 569, in a vote on December 21.

Free staters called their own constitutional convention in Leavenworth in March 1858, though their work demonstrated how those opposed to the extension of slavery weren't always in favor of equal rights for black citizens. Many delegates wanted to limit voting rights to white men only, and the final Leavenworth constitution called for the exclusion of free blacks from Kansas.

The ratification of the Lecompton Constitution also prompted a rancorous debate over the document's legitimacy in Washington. President James Buchanan urged Congress to approve the Lecompton Constitution, which would admit Kansas as a slave state. A majority of the Senate concurred, but the House preferred to resubmit the constitution for a popular vote. A compromise between the two chambers agreed that if the Lecompton Constitution was approved in a fair up-or-down vote, Kansas would be a slave state. On August 2, the constitution was overwhelmingly defeated in an 11,812 to 1,926 result.

Free staters had ratified the Leavenworth constitution in May, but serious efforts to pursue it ended after the Lecompton Constitution was defeated. Yet another convention, held in Wyandotte in July 1859, prohibited slavery and granted citizenship rights, but not voting rights, to blacks. Robinson backed some more radical elements, including women's suffrage, that failed to make the final document. On October 4, 1859, Kansas citizens approved the Wyandotte Constitution in a 10,421 to 5,530 vote.

Kansas governor and conflict with Lane

In the gubernatorial election held in December 1860, Robinson was named the Republican candidate and faced off against Samuel Medary, the incumbent Democratic territorial governor. Despite efforts by Democrats to frame Robinson and the Republicans as radicals in the mold of John Brown, who had led the Pottawatomie Massacre before heading east and raiding Harper's Ferry in October 1859, Robinson won the race with 7,908 votes to Medary's 5,395.

Kansas was formally admitted to the Union as a free state on January 29, 1861. By this time, six Southern states had already seceded in response to Abraham Lincoln's election as President. When Robinson took office on February 9, Texas had joined the list of seceders. Two months after he began his duties, the attack on Fort Sumter prompted the departure of four more states and kicked off the Civil War.

Robinson oversaw efforts to establish the new state government and judicial system, as well as a relocation of the state capital to Topeka, but the conflict quickly became his primary focus. Although Missouri remained in the Union fold, tensions between slave state and the newly admitted free Kansas remained; Robinson had to dedicate considerable attention to the frequent raids and counter-raids across the state line. Although Kansas was not included when Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers to help put down the rebellion, Robinson organized a state militia to aid the cause. When a second call for volunteers allotted a quota of 5,006 to Kansas, the state sent more than twice that number.

Meanwhile, the relationship between Robinson and Lane had deteriorated considerably. Despite the praise the men had for each other after the Wakarusa War, they had fundamentally different backgrounds and temperaments. Lane, a former Democratic congressman, was hot-tempered, vulgar, and militaristic; since he had supported pro-slavery legislation in the past, he was also seen as something of an opportunist. Robinson was generally regarded as more levelheaded and ambitious.

James Lane, who became a fierce rival of Robinson. (Source)

One of the earlier conflicts between Robinson and Lane occurred on October 5, 1857, when Lane called for a military movement against pro-slavery settlers and the destruction of the legislature. While this proposal was rejected, he did manage to create a military board at a meeting of the legislature on January 4, 1858, and have himself appointed to lead it, whereupon he continued to advocate for violence against pro-slavery camps. When Robinson was called before the board, he effectively undercut it by saying the entity had no authority to summon him.

Lane, who was active in mustering Kansas troops, lobbed a variety of accusations at Robinson during the war. He went so far as to accuse the governor of treason, and of willfully depriving him of necessary artillery. Late in 1861, Lane and his allies in the legislature tried to oust Robinson on a technicality, claiming that his term ended in January 1862, not 1863. They staged an election that named George A. Crawford as Robinson's successor, but the result was declared illegitimate by the state supreme court.

Lane would finally land a disabling blow against Robinson with a fairly obscure issue: whether state bond sales had been carried out correctly.

Impeachment

As part of their effort to fund and sustain a militia, as well as get the state institutions up and running, the Kansas legislature authorized the issuance of $150,000 in state bonds. Under previously established guidelines, the bonds were to be sold at no less than 70 cents on the dollar.

John W. Robinson, Robinson's unrelated secretary of state, and George S. Hillyer, the state auditor, didn't abide by this stipulation when they set up an agreement with bond agent Robert Stevens. The two men promised to effectively deliver bonds at 60 cents on the dollar, since Stevens would purchase $50,000 at 40 cents on the dollar and $37,000 at 70 cents on the dollar. Governor Robinson claimed that while he thought it was good state policy to sell the bonds at a lower rate if they were unable to get a better one, he recognized the problem with doing so and declined to sign a paper authorizing the transaction. However, he had given his secretary of state and state auditor approval to make the bond arrangements, and they ultimately finalized the agreement and attached his name without his approval.

Although it wasn't ideal, the arrangement wasn't necessarily corrupt. None of the officials involved benefitted personally from selling the bonds at a lower return, and there was also the risk that refusing to sell to Stevens would result in no bond sale and thus no proceeds at all. Still, selling the bonds below the stipulated amount was a violation of state legislation, and therefore a violation of the law.

Lane's allies in the legislature pounced on the opportunity to take down Robinson, and the house of representatives authorized an investigation at the end of January 1862. Lane was one of the people deposed, and alleged that the money from the bond sales was being sought "for use against my friends and myself in Kansas, and that it would not go into the State Treasury." On February 15, the state house of representatives approved five impeachment charges against Robinson, as well as eight charges against John W. Robinson and seven against Hillyer. Robinson was the first U.S. governor to be impeached.

After a lengthy debate over how to proceed, the trial went forward in June. John W. Robinson's impeachment trial was the most comprehensive, and resulted in his removal from office following conviction on a single count of the "high misdemeanor" of selling bonds below the rate set by the legislature. The state senate immediately began the proceedings against Hillyer, with the agreement that the evidence introduced in John W. Robinson's trial (with the exception of Hillyer's own testimony) would be applicable to the new trial. Hillyer was also convicted of the same charge.

Governor Robinson's charge was perfunctory, starting and concluding on June 16. The testimony suggested that the governor was not directly involved in the bond sale, since he was in Kansas while John W. Robinson and Hillyer sought to make the transaction in Washington, D.C. General J.C. Stone, quartermaster general, testified that he had told Robinson several times that he thought the bonds could be disposed of for 100 cents on the dollar, but also realized that the governor had no control over the bonds. John W. Robinson and Hillyer also took the stand, saying there had been no real arrangement with Robinson on how the bonds would be disposed of.

Wilson Shannon, arguing for the defense, proclaimed that the prosecution had advanced no evidence showing that the governor was complicit in the bond sales. The state treasurer had the duty to issue them, while the governor and auditor could only sign them. The mere signing of the bonds, he noted, had not been upheld as a high misdemeanor in Hillyer's trial.

Davies Wilson, leading the prosecution, praised Robinson's character and lamented that he was facing removal from office, but said it was nevertheless the duty of the state senate to carry out their duty. "Precious may be our tried friends and trusted leaders, yet more precious should be purity and integrity," he declared. "And when, in these venal days, it is given us the privilege of proving our allegiance to virtue, and honor and truth, even at so great a price, let us be bold to set an illustrious example, and declare that here at least there are none so exalted, none so protected from process of law, none so powerful as to do wrong, yet fear no penalty."

Robinson was acquitted on all five counts. There were only three votes to convict scattered across two charges, and on three articles the vote to clear him was unanimous.

Although the result was a rather decisive exoneration, the impeachment proved crippling to Robinson's political career. At the Republican state convention on September 17, he lost the gubernatorial nomination to Thomas Carney, who subsequently succeeded him in office. Robinson left office on January 12, 1863, having completed a single term.

Later life

Robinson followed a variety of pursuit after his time as governor. In addition to maintaining his farm, he was a regent at the University of Kansas for several years as well as director of the Leavenworth, Lawrence & Galveston Railroad Company. He also served as the president of the Kansas Historical Society from 1879 to 1880 and superintendent of the Haskell Institute at Lawrence from 1887 to 1889.

Robinson didn't abandon politics entirely. Starting in 1873, he served eight years as an independent in the Kansas state senate. He also ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. House of Representatives in 1886 and governor of Kansas in 1890. Becoming estranged from the Republican Party, he left it in 1886 and worked with both Democrats and Populists, helping back fusion candidate of Lorenzo D. Lewelling as governor of Kansas in 1892.

Contemporary accounts have credited Robinson with being a moderating force that helped to keep the antebellum violence in Kansas from spiraling out of control. He wrote about these prewar tensions in 1891 in a book entitled The Kansas Conflict.

Robinson died in Lawrence on August 17, 1894.

Sources: Kansas Historical Society, Lecompton Historical Society, National Governors Association, Territorial Kansas Online, The Kansas City Public Library, Dickinson College's "House Divided" Search Engine, The United States Biographical Dictionary: Kansas Volume, The Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, The California Gold Rush and the Coming Civil War by Leonard L. Richards, The Pursuit of Public Power: Political Culture in Ohio 1787-1861 edited by Jeffrey P. Brown and Andrew R.L. Clayton, Kansas's War: The Civil War in Documents edited by Pearl T. Ponce, Man of Douglas, Man of Lincoln: The Political Odyssey of James Henry Lane by Ian Michael Spurgeon, The Life of Charles Robinson: The First Governor of Kansas by Frank Wilson Blackmar, Proceedings in the Cases of the Impeachment of Charles Robinson, Governor; John W. Robinson, Secretary of State; George S. Hillyer, Auditor of State, of Kansas

Mike Lowry: Sexual Harassment Claims End Political Career of "Governor Mayhem"

While the #MeToo movement has recently spotlighted the issue of sexual harassment and encouraged victims to report it, a concerted effort to combat the problem began several decades earlier. Legislation in the 1960s prohibited employers from discriminating based on sex in their hires, and other laws helped codify sexual harassment and provide remedies for victims.

In the early 1990s, a memorable series of public service announcements marked an early effort to empower women to fight back against harassers. The videos show women enduring innuendos and lewd remarks from their boorish employers, but ultimately calling out the behavior as sexual harassment, adding, "And I don't have to take it!"

These PSAs were airing at approximately the same time that Governor Mike Lowry of Washington was under fire for sexual harassment claims. Several women accused him of unwanted touching and inappropriate remarks, although some did not want to come forward publicly.

While an investigation concluded that it was impossible to confirm the claims or exonerate Lowry, the accusations were enough to torpedo the governor's already ailing political career.

Early life

Lowry was born in St. John, Washington on March 8, 1939 and moved to Endicott as a child. He grew up in a family of "New Deal Democrats" who admired President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his relief efforts during the Great Depression.

In 1961, while attending Washington State University, Lowry signed up to join the Navy. He was rejected due to high blood pressure, and graduated from the university the next year.

Mike Lowry's senior year high school portrait (Source)

Lowry held a variety of jobs in the ensuing years, including brief stints working for a financial information company and a Seattle building contractor. He also spent three years working as a salesman for the textbook publisher Allyn & Bacon.

During the late 60s, Lowry volunteered on a number of political campaigns including Robert F. Kennedy's presidential bid and Karl Hermann's run for state insurance commissioner. He also worked on the gubernatorial campaign of state senator Martin Durkan Sr. While Durkan failed to win the office, he was impressed enough with Lowry's work to offer him a job on the senate's ways and means committee. Lowry worked as a chief financial analyst and staff director for this committee between 1969 and 1973.

Lowry also managed Durkan's 1972 bid for the governor's office, when he lost the Democratic primary. After leaving the state senate job, he served as the governmental affairs director for the Puget Sound Group Health Cooperative from 1974 to 1975. That year, he was elected to the Metropolitan King County Council, two years after an unsuccessful campaign for this agency. He was also elected president of the Washington State Association of Counties in 1978.

Congress

In 1978, Lowry won the Democratic nomination for Washington's 7th Congressional District and challenged Representative John E. Cunningham III in the general election. While the district leaned Democratic, Cunningham had captured it in a 1977 special election after the resignation of Brock Adams, a Democrat who resigned to become Secretary of Transportation.

The gay community of Seattle was starting to become a more powerful voting bloc, and Lowry's campaign wasn't averse to courting supporters at the city's gay bars. When the ballots were counted, Lowry had comfortably defeated Cunningham by about 7,500 votes out of nearly 127,000 cast.

Lowry's congressional portrait (Source)

Lowry would serve in the House of Representatives for the next decade, championing universal health care, the Woman Infants and Children program, and a variety of other liberal causes. Following up on a campaign promise, he introduced a bill to pay reparations to more than 110,000 Japanese-Americans and Aleuts who were imprisoned in federal camps during World War II. While this effort failed, it was credited with helping to launch the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians. It also paved the way for a 1988 bill offering the former inmates $20,000 apiece and a formal apology declaring their imprisonment a "grave injustice."

The proposal rankled some who misunderstood the intent of the bill. Lowry was known for frequently holding community meetings in his district, as many as 50 a year, and at one such town hall he was confronted by angry World War II veterans. Staying more than two hours beyond the scheduled end time of the event, Lowry explained that his proposed bill would support Japanese-American citizens who had been rounded up as potential security risks and native Alaskans who had been evacuated in advance of a military effort in the Aleutians, not Japanese soldiers who had fought against the United States.

His visits to the district included also included an annual shrimp feed, which served as a Democratic fundraiser. It soon became a must-attend function for anyone hoping to seek office on the party's ticket.

Lowry's time in office roughly corresponded with Ronald Reagan's years in the White House, and he was a sharp critic of the President. He accused the White House of making budget cuts that he said would primarily harm the poor, criticized the administration's aid to Nicaraguan Contras, and opposed policies such as abortion restrictions and arms buildup.

In 1987, Lowry spearheaded a lawsuit joined by more than 100 congressmen against the Reagan Administration. The Lowry v. Reagan suit sought to compel the President to file a report under the War Powers Resolution after Reagan directed American ships to provide protective escorts to reflagged Kuwaiti oil tankers during the war between Iran and Iraq. The case was later dismissed in federal court.

Lowry championed environmental initiatives for his home state, including the Washington Wilderness Act in 1984. He also supported legislation to establish the Cougar Lakes Wilderness, create a wildlife refuge at Grays Harbor, and designate the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary to forestall any attempt at offshore oil drilling near Washington. He opposed a proposal for a naval base at Everett, acknowledging that the development would be good for the region's economy but harmful to Puget Sound. Lowry was also part of a cooperative effort by the Washington and Oregon delegations that successfully contested the Department of Energy's efforts to restart the nuclear station at Hanford.

Since international trade was highly beneficial to Washington State, Lowry was supportive of measures that would assist it. He was credited with helping to save direct loans to buyers of international products, which were offered by the Export-Import Bank. These loans were especially helpful to Boeing, one of Washington's major employers, since the aircraft manufacturer was the bank's largest customer. However, the support also earned Lowry criticism among liberals who derided the loans as a form of corporate welfare.

At the same time, Lowry earned a reputation of having a strong commitment to his values, unlike other elected officials who were willing to sell them out for political expediency. He was one of just 16 Democrats opposed to the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, which allocated funding to fight narcotics trafficking and increased federal penalties for drug crimes. The legislation passed shortly before the year's congressional elections, in which the Democrats maintained their majority in the House and recaptured the Senate. Even some of the bill's supporters acknowledged that the legislation was not a viable solution to the problem of drug trafficking, but felt it was a good way to demonstrate that they were tough on crime. Lowry, by contrast, denounced it as "legislation by political panic."

Lowry was described as a "demonstrative politician," who engaged in various stunts to highlight certain issues. At one point, he hiked the Greenwater River to show how a proposed wilderness bill would exclude salmon spawning grounds. In another incident, he and a few other congressmen camped out on a D.C. subway grate to raise awareness of homelessness in the nation's capital.

On two occasions, Lowry sought to leave the House to move over to the Senate. His first opportunity came in 1983, in a special election called to finish the term of Democratic Senator Henry M. Jackson, who had died on September 1. Lowry lost to Republican candidate Dan Evans, a former Washington governor.

Evans quickly became frustrated with the job. In a scathing article published in the New York Times Magazine on April 17, 1988, he said the Senate "had lost its focus and was in danger of losing its soul." He announced that he could not "face another six years of frustrating gridlock," and so would not seek re-election.

Lowry again sought the seat. Unlike the special election, Lowry had to give up a more secure bid at holding his House seat in favor of a statewide contest. While he was leading in the polls in the days leading up to the election, a last-minute negative ad campaign against Republican opponent and former senator Slade Gorton backfired. Facing criticism and accusations of mudslinging, Lowry lost the race by about 40,000 votes out of 1.85 million cast.

Governor of Washington

After leaving Congress, Lowry took a job as professor of government at Seattle University's Institute of Public Service. In a show of bipartisanship, he joined with Evans in the summer of 1989 to help found the Washington Wildlife and Recreation Coalition. The men served as co-chairs of the organization, which has a goal of preserving wilderness and farmland in Washington as well as founding new local and state parks.

Mike Lowry, at right, with Dan Evans (center) and Elliott Marks, co-founders of the Washington Wildlife and Recreation Coalition (Source)

Lowry re-entered the political scene in 1992, when he joined the gubernatorial race to succeed retiring incumbent Booth Gardner, a Democrat who had served two terms. Lowry easily won the Democratic primary, defeating state house speaker Joe King in a 337,783 to 9,648 landslide. Having learned his lesson from his Senate defeat, he refused to campaign negatively and instituted a self-imposed $1,500 maximum on campaign contributions. In the general contest, he earned 1.18 million votes and bested Republican opponent and state attorney general Ken Eikenberry by about 100,000 ballots.

As governor, Lowry quickly committed himself to a slew of reform efforts. These included expanding aid to low-income families, protections for migrant workers, and a universal health care bill. He frequently issued press releases to avow his support for liberal causes such as gay rights, environmental initiatives, and abortion rights. On June 27, 1993, he became the first governor to address Seattle's annual gay pride parade. There, he called on the legislature to protect the LGBT community from discrimination in housing and employment, declaring that "if one persons's civil rights are being abused, then everyone's civil rights are endangered."

The onslaught of policy earned Lowry the nickname "Governor Mayhem" as critics, including some from his own party, charged that he was moving too quickly, angering too many constituents, and depleting too much of his political capital to effectively make change. Yet he also earned grudging respect from foes for his energy and unflinching devotion to his ideals. "When Mike Lowry says something, you always know exactly where he stands," said Clyde Ballard, a Republican who would serve as speaker of the house during Lowry's term in office.

One of Lowry's most controversial moves was an effort to close a $1.8 billion state budget gap by raising taxes. He supported a state income tax, despite an economic recession and the failure of previous administrations to put one in place. Lowry also favored a gas tax to fund a light rail system aimed at alleviating traffic in the Puget Sound region, and sought to extend the sales tax to professional services.

The taxes provided Republicans with an easy platform to contest the governor at the next statewide election. In 1994, the GOP made the strongest gains in the state legislature in nearly 50 years. The following year, they began working to undo the governor's work, including a rollback of the tax increase that passed over his veto. The legislature also repealed the central tenet of the health care bill, the individual health insurance mandate, which effectively neutered the reform. Lowry's accomplishments soon became limited to what he could stop by veto, which included Republican efforts to bar death row inmates from eligibility for organ transplants or other medical assistance.

In 1995, Lowry named Annette Sandberg to head the Washington State Patrol. Just 33 years old, she was the first woman in the country to lead a state police force. It was a controversial pick; Sandberg vowed to reform the agency by breaking up the "good old boys" network, promising that some officers would be demoted or reassigned. Her term resulted in a number of accomplishments, including the introduction of a K9 program, efforts to combat racial profiling, and a commitment to increasing the racial diversity of the force. Nevertheless, she was blamed for a drop in morale among the agency's patrolmen. Sandberg resigned in 2000; Lowry would later stick by his choice, saying he thought she had done a good job.

Lowry's rocky time in the governor's office was further complicated by his strained relationship with the Democratic Party and its traditional supporters. Many Democrats in the state house had gravitated to the right in order to weather the Republican surge, and some declared their outright refusal to support parts of Lowry's agenda. State unions were outraged when he backed reforms making it easier to fire under-performing public employees, and when he supported contracting out some state services to private companies.

(Source)

A review of Lowry's time in office by the Spokesman-Review acknowledged that Lowry's tax increases were made in tandem with efforts to cut government spending. The growth of the state employee payroll slowed dramatically under his watch, while the growth of state spending fell by more than half between the start and end of his four-year term. He made cuts to travel expenses and workers compensation insurance rates for state employees. Lowry even extended the austerity to his own expenses, slashing his salary by $31,000 and covering several of his own expenses, including groceries, the telephone service at the governor's mansion, and $100 a month of his vehicle's gas and maintenance costs.

The newspaper's analysis also credited Lowry with supporting business tax breaks and overseas trade that helped spur the creation of 174,600 new jobs in the state, scrapping the waiting list for state-subsidized child care, and extending health insurance to 140,000 adults and 195,000 low-income children. He had also backed a successful effort to build a new stadium for the Seattle Mariners in 1995 after fears that the decrepit state of their field would cause the baseball team to leave the city. In a 2002 retrospective, Lowry said he was proud that he had helped maintain social services and environmental commitments in the midst of budget difficulties, while also working to build up a surplus of about $500,000 by the end of his term.

Despite these successes, Lowry remained a fairly unpopular figure as the 1996 election approached. He had a contentious relationship with the press, accusing them of being "unwitting subsidiaries of the right wing of the Republican Party" after several stories on his tax proposals, and had stopped granting one-on-one interviews with the media. A poll by the Spokesman-Review and TV station KHQ-TV found that only one in four voters in Washington approved of his performance, with just 14 percent say they'd vote for him again.

By this time, however, Lowry was facing a new challenge: several women, including his former deputy press secretary, had accused him of sexual harassment.

Sexual harassment accusations


On March 29, 1994, Washington State Patrol employee Becky Miner complained that Lowry had inappropriately pressed his body against hers while she took his fingerprints for security clearance to the White House. Christine Gregoire, the state's attorney general, reviewed the matter and concluded that Miner's claim could not be proven or refuted. She recommended sexual harassment training for the governor, which he completed in September.

Two months later, Miner's complaint became public after it was leaked to the press. Lowry's deputy press secretary, Susanne Albright, was reportedly so upset by the accusation that she went on medical leave. It soon emerged that Albright, who would opt to resign her position, had her own claims against the governor.

Albright said she had been subjected to routine harassment, touching, and groping during her time in Lowry's employ. She also said the governor made frequent lewd or offensive comments, such as asking if she had brought along a bikini during a business trip and answering one of her phone calls by questioning whether she was the Susanne "with the beautiful long legs."

Two former Lowry aides would also say they were sexually harassed during Lowry's time in congress, though they would remain anonymous. One said that Lowry kissed her on the mouth on one occasion "in a matter that she felt was clearly sexual;" a friend corroborated this account and said Lowry had kissed her as well. The aide said Lowry had also engaged in touching she found offensive, including an unsolicited neck rub, a hug that touched her breast, and rubbing her knees and legs.

The other aide made similar allegations, saying Lowry's behavior had included lingering hugs, kisses on the mouth, a neck rub, and rubbing her leg while she was driving. In response, she asked that her office be relocated to a more open location and that she not be assigned to chauffeur Lowry.

The women's attorney, Judith Lonquist, said a Lowry supporter told her during the gubernatorial campaign that the women might bring up their accusations. Lonquist said she had initially supported Lowry's candidacy, but opted not to vote for him after hearing from the former aides.

On January 17, 1995, Lowry's lawyer wrote to chief deputy attorney general Kathleen Mix saying it was unlikely that Albright would file a lawsuit. The letter also said that Albright had "consistently declined to make a complaint under our office policy." Nevertheless, Lowry ordered an independent investigation into the matter. Two days later, Seattle attorney Mary Alice Theiler was appointed to head the inquiry.

While the investigation was initially conducted in private, Lowry disclosed it after the Seattle Post-Intelligencer made a public records request regarding the matter. Albright said she had not intended for her allegations to become public, but stressed that she had left her job because of "a clear, and I repeat, very clear, and persistent pattern of unacceptable behavior toward me." Lowry denied that he had ever done anything intentionally offensive to Albright, and that she had never voiced any concerns to him.

On February 16, 1995, Lowry sat down for a televised interview in which he apologized to any women he may have offended. "I have learned that some people are uncomfortable. I feel bad about that," said Lowry. "I don't want anybody to feel uncomfortable with me. Whoever that might be, anybody I have ever made feel uncomfortable, I apologize to."

He was joined by his wife, Mary, would prove to be a staunch supporter; he vehemently denied that he had ever been unfaithful to her in any way. Lowry also denied suggestions that the alleged conduct may have stemmed from a drinking problem, though he conceded that this had once been a concern and he had cut back on his alcohol consumption about a decade earlier.

Theiler's investigation concluded on March 23, when she released a 51-page report detailing her findings. Lowry said he often hugged, kissed, or patted his employees in what were intended to be friendly gestures, and that he was unaware that they had sometimes caused offense. Theiler also noted that Albright's story changed over the course of different interviews, and that she may have had a grievance against Lowry for other reasons. Some employees in the governor's office recalled that when she discovered she was not getting an expected promotion, Albright threatened, "If I don't get this job, he doesn't know what he's getting into." Theiler concluded that there wasn't sufficient evidence to support Albright's accusations.

The women who had accused Lowry were quick to voice their displeasure with Theiler's findings. Albright said the investigator had downplayed some incidents, taken others out of context, and ignored the allegations of other women since the investigation had only been called to look into Albright's claims. The two congressional aides also said they were disappointed with Theiler's report, believing that she had largely ignored them.

In response, Theiler stressed that her report had not exonerated the governor. She had concluded that Lowry "touched [Albright] in ways she found offensive," and that he "clearly engaged in conduct that offended one valuable employee and likely others." Theiler also suggested that Lowry's temper may have prevented Albright from confronting him about his behavior.

The investigation led to some scrutiny of Lowry's character in press reports, where associates suggested that the governor's affable public persona concealed a more volatile private one. One social service advocate recalled that when they met with Lowry in 1993 and suggested that his health care reform excluded migrant workers, the governor became livid and berated them for bringing up the criticism, saying he had long advocated for migrant workers on other occasions. Anne Fennessy, his former press secretary, said Lowry was quick to anger but also had a good sense of humor and recovered quickly.

Walt Crowley, one of the governor's advisers, said he was passionate about his beliefs, and sometimes stubborn or impatient. Other associates said Lowry was most likely to express anger if his advisers tried to manage him or steer him away from his principles. However, this also led to criticism that he was too cloistered, ignoring input from his aides or hiring loyalists who wouldn't challenge him. "Mike's inner circle is Mike," one former aide declared.

The press also found that Lowry's drinking had caused some concerns in the past, and that he was more likely to lose his temper when he was not sober. Lowry's potential alcoholism was reportedly worrying enough to his 1992 campaign staff that they held a meeting to discuss it.

Lowry maintained that the actions that had prompted the sexual harassment allegations were meant to be friendly. "I want people to feel comfortable with me," he said. "I don't want people to think that I think I'm a big shot." Tricia Wilson, Lowry's executive assistant, said she had never been offended by the governor's actions but could understand how it would make other women feel uncomfortable. "It didn't bother me and a lot of people just took it as the way he was," she said. "But maybe the younger generation is more sensitive."

Albright's case was the only one which would be formally resolved. In an agreement signed on July 14, 1995, Lowry agreed to pay her $97,500 from his own personal funds in exchange for Albright's promise not to file a lawsuit. Albright said she was satisfied with the settlement, suggesting that the sum indicated that Lowry's behavior constituted "more than a pat on the back."

The fallout from the scandal made Lowry's re-election prospects even more daunting. Several women's groups publicly declared that they would not endorse him if he ran again. Two top female aides, Fennessy and chief legal counsel Jenny Durkan, resigned while Theiler's investigation was underway, although both insisted that their departures were unrelated to the sexual harassment charges. Fennessy said she had been thinking of leaving her position for some time due to the stress of a job "that never ends."

Nevertheless, the turmoil gave Republicans an easy opportunity to score political points. "If the governor cannot maintain a stable office and put ethical questions behind him, he should consider resigning rather than spending the next year and a half as a lame duck," advised Eikenberry, who had become the GOP state chairman after his defeat in the 1992 election.

On February 22, 1996, Lowry announced that he would not seek re-election, in part so he could help care for his elderly mother and father-in-law. While he initially denied that the sexual harassment accusations played a role in the decision, he later admitted that they had been a "major factor;" he said he didn't want his family to see the issue brought up again during the race.

Lowry's term ended in January 1997. The Democrats held the governor's office by a comfortable margin, with party candidate Gary Locke taking 58 percent of the vote in the general election.

Later life

Lowry is introduced during Governor Chris Gregoire's State of the State speech on January 15, 2013. (Source)

Lowry made one more political bid after his time as governor, running for state lands commissioner in 2000. The commission oversees approximately five million acres of state-owned lands. Lowry lost to GOP candidate Doug Sutherland by about 100,000 votes out of roughly 2.32 million cast.

The bulk of Lowry's post-political career was spent volunteering. He worked with Washington Agricultural Families Assistance to help build homes for migrant farm workers, as well as Enterprise Washington to support job creation in the economically depressed parts of the state. He was also active in organizations dedicated to ending homelessness.

Lowry retired to a small ranch near Kettle Falls. In 2003, he brokered a deal to convert a former sugar beet factory to an ethanol plant.

He died on May 1, 2017 in Olympia following complications from a stroke.

Sources: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, "Michael Edward 'Mike' Lowry" on HistoryLink.org, "Governor Mayhem?" in the Seattle Times on Apr. 25 1993,  "Lowry Accused of Sexual Harassment" in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer on Feb. 4 1995, "Lowry Apologizes For Behavior" in the Kitsap Sun on Feb. 17 1995, "Spokeswoman Lowry's Third Aide to Quit" in the Kitsap Sun on Feb. 18 1995, "Mike Lowry's Other Side" in the Seattle Times on Feb. 26 1995, "Friendly Touch or Grope? It's Hard to Know For Sure, Lowry Investigator Concludes" in the Seattle Times on Mar. 24 1995, "Ex-Lowry Aides Say Incidents Ignored" in the Spokesman-Review on Mar. 28 1995, "Lowry Agrees to Pay Ex-Aide $97,500" in the Seattle Times on Jul. 14 1995, "Lowry Declares He's Out of Running" in the Spokesman-Review on Feb. 23 1996, "The Liberal Legacy of Mike Lowry" in the Spokesman-Review on Jan. 15 1997, "Controversial State Patrol Chief Resigns" in the Daily Herald on Nov. 20 2000, "Former Washington Gov. Mike Lowry, Table-Pounding Liberal, Dies at 78" in the Seattle Times on May 1 2017, "Mike Lowry, Proudly Progressive Ex-Governor, Dies Early on May Day" on SeattlePI.com on May 1 2017, "Mike Lowry, Ex-Congressman and Washington State Governor, Dies at 78" in the New York Times on May 3 2017, "Former Washington Gov. Mike Lowry Remembered As Proud Liberal, Quietly Generous" in the Seattle Times on May 30 2017, The First Civil Right: How Liberals Built Prison America by Naomi Murakawa, The Intersection of Law and War Vol. 126, Gay Seattle: Stories of Exile and Belonging by Gary Atkins