in 1972 Both in his political rhetoric and in his public persona, Edwards cast himself as a Louisiana
populist in the tradition of
Huey P. Long and
Earl K. Long. Dale Thorn, who had been Edwards' press secretary while he was in Congress, continued in that position for the first and most of the second Edwards terms. He was later associate commissioner of higher education for the
Louisiana Board of Regents, and a journalism professor at
Louisiana State University. Under Edwards,
Michael H. O'Keefe of New Orleans in 1976 was named president of the state Senate, an office that was held by the lieutenant governor prior to the implementation of the state Constitution of 1974. In 1983, as Edwards prepared to return to office, O'Keefe was engulfed in scandal and forced to resign as senate president. He was as replaced by Edwards loyalist
Samuel B. Nunez Jr., of
Chalmette in
St. Bernard Parish. On the same day Edwards won election to a third term, O'Keefe lost his bid for a seventh term by a wide margin to state Rep. Ben Bagert. In 2013, O'Keefe was still serving time in prison for a 1999 conviction. During his first two terms in office, Edwards developed a reputation for being a colorful and flamboyant politicians in a state known for its unorthodox political figures. Charismatic, well dressed, and quick with clever one-liners and retorts, Edwards maintained wide popularity.
Policies and achievements , April 1976 After enduring three grueling rounds of voting in the 1971–1972 campaign, Edwards pushed a bill through the legislature that limited state elections to two rounds by having Democratic, Republican, and independent candidates run together on the same ballot in a
nonpartisan blanket primary. Though the
jungle primary system was intended to benefit Edwards' own political career, many observers cite it as being a major factor in the eventual rise of the state's Republican Party and the creation of a genuinely competitive two-party system. For this, Edwards was facetiously christened "father of Louisiana's Republican Party". William Denis Brown III, a lawyer and a state senator from
Monroe, was Edwards's floor leader in the upper legislative chamber in the first term as governor. A native of
Vicksburg, Mississippi reared on a plantation north of
Lake Providence in
East Carroll Parish, Brown was instrumental in drafting the Louisiana Mineral Code. Thereafter from 1980 to 1988, Brown was the chairman of the Louisiana Board of Ethics. Early in the first gubernatorial term, Edwards initiated the creation of the first new Louisiana state constitution in more than a half century. He intended to replace the Constitution of 1921, an unwieldy and outmoded document burdened with hundreds of amendments. A constitutional convention was held in 1973; the resulting document was put into effect in 1975. , the 1973 Constitution remains in effect. Edwards also undertook a major reorganization of the state government, abolishing over 80 state agencies and modeling the remaining structure after that of the federal government. Edwards named State Representative
J. Burton Angelle of
Breaux Bridge as his director of the
Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, a key appointment which Angelle filled for Edwards' first three terms of office. Edwards' tenure in the 1970s coincided with a huge boom in the state's oil and gas industry after the gas pricing crisis of 1973. Edwards was able to greatly expand the state's oil revenues by basing
severance taxes on a percentage of the price of each barrel rather than the former flat rate. This oil money fueled a massive increase in state spending (a 163% increase between 1972 and 1980), and Edwards was able to consistently balance the state budget due to the boom in oil revenue. Much of this increased spending went toward health and human services programs and increased funding for vocational-technical schools and higher education. Edwards easily won reelection in 1975, with 750,107 votes (62.3 percent). In second place was Democratic state senator
Robert G. "Bob" Jones of
Lake Charles, son of former governor
Sam Houston Jones, with 292,220 (24.3 percent). Secretary of State
Wade O. Martin Jr., ran third with 146,363 (12.2 percent). Thereafter, Jones and Martin became Republicans.
Addison Roswell Thompson, the perennial segregationist candidate from New Orleans, made his last race for governor in the 1975 primary.
Early scandals Though arguably minor compared to the Edwards scandals of the 1980s and 1990s, the governor was embroiled in several ethics controversies during his first two terms in office. At the time, Edwards was remarkably candid about his questionable practices. When questioned about receiving illegal campaign contributions, he replied that "It was illegal for them to give, but not for me to receive." Marcello was secretly recorded by the FBI praising Edwards, he stated “Edwin and me, we all right. But I can’t see him every day. He’s the strongest son of a bitch governor ever had”. During the governor's first term, a disaffected former Edwards bodyguard named
Clyde Vidrine made several high-profile accusations of corruption, including the sale of state agency posts. The accusations were investigated by a grand jury, but the Edwards administration attacked Vidrine's credibility and the investigation stalled. Later, Vidrine published a tell-all book called ''Just Takin' Orders'', which included salacious details of Edwards' frequent gambling trips and extramarital escapades. Vidrine was murdered in December 1986 by the husband of a woman he was guarding, who believed Vidrine was having an affair with his wife. In a 1976 scandal known as
Koreagate, it came to light that Edwards and his wife Elaine had received questionable gifts in 1971, while Edwards was a U.S. representative. South Korean rice broker
Tongsun Park was under investigation for trying to bribe American legislators on behalf of the South Korean government, and for making millions of dollars in commissions on American purchases of South Korean rice. Edwards admitted that Park gave Elaine an envelope containing $10,000 in cash, but insisted that the gift was given out of friendship and that there was nothing improper about it. In the course of the controversy, Edwards stated that he thought it was "super moralistic" for the U.S. government to prohibit American businessmen to accept gifts from foreign officials in the course of their business dealings. The scandal also engulfed Edwards's former congressional colleague
Otto Passman of
Monroe, who was later acquitted of all charges in the case, but nonetheless was defeated in his 1976 re-election bid by
Jerry Huckaby of
Ringgold. ==First political comeback: Edwards vs. Treen, 1983==