Austin Mayor Lee Leffingwell, left, gave a proclamation Monday (Aug. 4, 2014) to former Louisiana governor Edwin Edwards during an appearance at the Headliners Club. Photo courtesy of the Edwin Edwards campaign for Congress.
Before I begin, today’s First Reading includes the latest poster from the Texas-born, L.A. street artist SABO, who last week used Gov. Perry’s mug shot to produce the Rick Perry Wanted for President 2016 poster (“If looking good’s a crime, then baby I’m guilty”).
It came over the transom last night.
As I explained in the last First Reading, I have been watching the dramatic events in Austin from a remove – New Orleans – where I delivered my daughter to college. I am headed back to Austin today, but before leaving Louisiana I spoke Saturday with former Gov. Edwin Edwards, who, after a long stint in prison, is now running for Congress.
Edwards was also recently in Austin.
Edwin Edwards, former governor of Louisiana, served an eight-year prison term for bribery and extortion.
But Austin Mayor Lee Leffingwell isn’t holding that against him.
Instead, he’s honoring Edwards, declaring Thursday as “Edwin Edwards Day.” Leffingwell gave the proclamation to the ex-con now running for Congress at a Monday luncheon in Austin with some of Edwards’ supporters.
“I’m fully aware of his past, good and bad,” Leffingwell told the American-Statesman. He said Edwards was a “nice fellow” and that Thursday is Edwards’ birthday.
Edwards, 86, is a polarizing and colorful figure in Louisiana. He started his political career as a congressman in 1965 and went on to serve four non-consecutive terms as governor between 1972 and 1996.
He went to prison in 2002 after being convicted of an assortment of charges — which included bribery, racketeering, extortion and fraud — involving a riverboat casino licensing scandal. Edwards was released from prison in 2011.
His political obituaries had long ago been written, so it stunned many Louisiana residents when he decided to re-enter politics earlier this year by running for Congress. Edwards, a Democrat, was barred by state law from running for governor for 15 years because of his felony conviction.
Equally stunning was Leffingwell’s decision to honor him, said several Louisiana natives now living in Austin.
Two questions come to mind about Gov. Edwin Edwards Day: 1. What was Leffingwell thinking? 2. Was Leffingwell thinking?
I asked Edwards what he thought about the proclamation.
Edwards has spent a lot of time in Austin over the years.
He said his friend had already suggested he come to Austin in the hopes that he might raise some money for his campaign for Congress. Edwin Edwards Day was “lagniappe” – a bonus gift.
“I don’t know her, I’ve never met her but I watch the news and she has been much in the news lately,” said Edwards.
He spent most of Perry’s long tenure as governor in prison.
“I really don’t know much about him,” Edwards said.
Edwards said he couldn’t evaluate whether the governor made “threats” that violated state law, but he figured that both Perry and District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg knew the ins and outs of the law.
Edwards presumed that it was Lehmberg who brought the case against Perry. Informed that the case was brought by a special prosecutor named by a Republican judge from San Antonio, Edwards said, “I’m not aware of that. That puts a different light on it – a special prosecutor appointed by a Republican judge. That takes away the vindictiveness.
There’s no shame in being a little fuzzy on the details of the indictment.
As the Statesman’s J. David McSwane reported from New Hampshire this weekend, Gov. Perry seems a little fuzzy on those details as well.
Perry brushed off his indictment by a Travis County grand jury last week on charges of abuse of official capacity and coercion of a public servant — at one point mistakenly characterizing one of the charges as bribery.
What Edwards does know is that prosecutors can be relentless in pursuit of their prey.
But he said he didn’t have any advice for Gov. Perry.
Finally, I asked Edwards about the recent controversy over State Rep. Dennis Bonnen’s use of the word “coonass” at a public hearing.
State Rep. Dennis Bonnen’s use of the word “coonass” in reference to Louisiana Cajuns at a Capitol hearing this week has sparked cries of outrage in Texas and Louisiana — as well as counter-cries of outrage that anyone is truly outraged by the use of a term that can be a slur, a term of affection or a badge of honor, depending on who says it to whom, where they say it and how it’s said.
Suffice it to say that the Angleton Republican regrets using the colloquialism.
Bonnen was trying to make the point toward the end of a five-hour hearing Tuesday of the special Texas House committee assessing the fiscal impact of the state’s border operations, that it may prove more expensive to educate newly arrived Central American students entering Texas schools speaking only Spanish than it was to educate Louisianans who arrived in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina with a command of English — albeit sometimes with a distinctive lilt and syntax.
“We respectfully request that you refrain from engaging in the use and promotion of this slang. To continue to do so would be a violation of applicable federal and state laws and a personal affront to many people of Louisiana,” said Warren A. Perrin, a board member on the Council for the Development of French in Louisiana, in a Thursday letter to Bonnen.
“If you do not agree to cease in the promotion of the pejorative, it may be necessary for us to take legal action which may include filing a claim with the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights,” Perrin added.
I asked Edwards what he made of all this.
“It really didn’t develop into a controversy until about 1971, 1972,” said Edwards. The popular history, he said, is “that it was a bastardization of the word `connasse,’ which is the French word for a cheap whore, that was applied to Cajun soldiers in French during World War II, and stuck.
But, Edwards said, he is not personally offended by it.