Judge Reggie is “Mr. Democrat” behind the scenes

Edmund Reggie, one of Louisiana's most skilled behind-scenes political operatives, and friend to Kennedy clan

By JUA NYLA HUTCHESON

CROWLEY, La. — Judge Edmund M. Reggie has verbally punched and negotiated his way through turbulent state and national Democratic Party politics for more than 25 years.

His first statewide taste of Louisiana's red pepper politics came when he stumped the state with Earl Long in 1955.  He was hooked.  After that, the judge made politics his avocation, working for, and sometimes around, four Democratic governors.

Reggie is considered one of Louisiana's most skilled behind-the-scenes political operatives, and he's expected to play a major role again in Edwin Edwards' 1983 campaign for governor.

A year after the Long campaign, Reggie plunged into national politics, working with Alexandria lawyer Camille Gravel to steal the state's Democratic delegation from Long and deliver it to vice presidential candidate John F. Kennedy.

Reggie's office here reflects his close relationship with the Kennedys.  There is a well-used rocking chair —a gift from the young president assassinated in Dallas - and there are dozens of photographs, evidence of a lasting friendship between the small town judge and one of the nation's most powerful political families.

FRIENDSHIP AND loyalty are the heart of politics for Reggie, who became Louisiana's youngest city judge in 1950.  He was 24.

Reggie energetically supported John F. Kennedy in his quest for the White House, and gave his full backing to Robert F. Kennedy until his assassination in 1968. The support, and attendant family friendship, now rests with the youngest of the brothers, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy.

The same type of lively support for Louisiana governors led him into numerous positions on state boards and commissions, all while continuing on the bench.

After years in the public arena, the judge is no stranger to controversy.

He took an early stand in support of civil rights, a position so unpopular in Louisiana during the mid-1950s that it earned him bitter opposition from segregationists, and some lingering political enmity.

YET REGGIE'S friendship with the Kennedys shows no traces of division and the close ties developed almost by accident.

At the 1956 Democratic convention in Chicago, Adlai Stevenson was the favorite for the presidential nomination.  The Louisiana delegation, operating under the unit rule, was committed to Gov. Frank Clement of Tennessee for vice president.

When Clement bowed out, Long expected to deliver the state's votes for vice president to Estes Kefauver, a relative of some sort, according to Gravel.  The governor, confident his state's delegation was under control.  Took off for the races, Reggie said.

But logistics worked against Long. 

The Massachusetts delegation was seated next to Louisiana's people at the convention and Kennedy supporters were hustling votes.

"BOBBY (KENNEDY) was the first one we met," Reggie reminisced, "and I thought, What a strange-looking young man. “  He didn't even have any Vitalis in his hair, unheard of in those days.

"Then we met with Jack, set up a meeting with the delegation and arranged for the votes to go with him, all while Mr. Earl was at the races.  When he came back and the vote was called, he was furious," Reggie said.

Reggie said Long told Stevenson after the convention, "Don't trust those two S.O.B.s Gravel and Reggie!"

The assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy were hard blows for Reggie, ideologically as well as personally.  He strongly opposes a possible parole for Robert Kennedy's convicted killer, Sirhan B. Sirhan.

"Sirhan did not just kill Bobby Kennedy; he killed a great deal of hope for millions of Americans who were for Bobby, and he robbed millions more of the right to make a free choice," Reggie said quietly.

According to Ted Kennedy, Reggie has been a "longtime friend, supporter, advisor and counselor to all the Kennedy brothers.

"HE'S BEEN through all the happy, favorable times with the family and through the more difficult times as well," Kennedy said in a telephone interview.

"He's been a tremendously effective political strategist, understanding people's needs, capabilities and abilities ...and limitations."

Reggie, who headed Kennedy's 1980 Louisiana campaign for the presidency, has said he will support the senator if he decides to seek the Democratic nomination again.

"That kind of loyalty is rare, as I found out in 1980," Kennedy said wryly. "His constancy says a lot for him as a human being."

The mid-1950s were exciting years for the Crowley attorney.

"Working on the campaign with Mr. Earl was one of the great experiences of my lifetime," Reggie said. "He really was a political wizard, the likes of which we’ll never see again.  During the campaign, I had the feeling this [missing words] chairman of the Democratic State Central Committee, but the governor's support waned as Reggie's popularity across the state grew.

"Now, you have to understand Earl never liked anybody to be too popular," Gravel recalled. "He thought there were three levels of politicians and the highest level of all was reserved for himself. The lowest level was all the others who were for and with him in the campaign, and the middle plateau was the dangerous ground when you were becoming too popular."

Reggie's popularity during that campaign peaked with a televised election eve speech on Long's behalf.

“That was about the time -television campaigning was coming into its own," Gravel said, adding that the Crowley lawyer's speech was "probably the best political talk on television at that time."

THE NEXT DAY, that speech began to haunt Reggie.  A variety of people, from elevator operators to campaigners, came up to Reggie, Gravel and Long at the old Roosevelt Hotel in New Orleans, congratulating him on the speech.

"Well, I winced every time someone said anything good about that speech," Reggie said. "My stock with Long was going down by the hour.  After that television show, there was no more room.  That was the end."

During the campaign, a group of theater owners seeking repeal of a half cent amusement tax on tickets put up $10,000 for Long's war chest, Gravel said.

Gravel said Long pledged to support the legislation.

During the legislative session after the governor's election, Reggie said he tried to see Long several times about the issue, without success, until the day the Legislature was killing his tax repeal bill.

INITIALLY, LONG denied any knowledge of the agreement, but when Reggie cited witnesses to the discussion, the governor conceded it might have been true.  The judge pressured Long to take some action to save the legislation, but Gravel said Long indicated he needed to raise taxes, not reduce them.

In desperation, Reggie pleaded, "What do I tell these people?"

"Tell 'em I lied!" Long growled, tugging his hat down over his ears.

"Well," Reggie said ruefully, "there's no appeal from that."

Reggie's first run-in with conservative Democrats came in 1957 when he backed Gravel on a civil rights plank on the national Democratic Party platform.  Reggie, a State Central Committee member, and Gravel unofficially helped write the plank, according to the Alexandria lawyer.

Other Louisiana committee members were incensed that Gravel, as national committeeman, would endorse such a plank.

"CAMILLE MADE a statement, a very simple statement," Reggie recalled. "He said, 'Segregation is morally wrong.' And because he dared say that, Judge (Leander) Perez and others wanted to oust him."

According to Gravel, Reggie spoke out in support of his stand and even went to Washington on his behalf.  Although Gravel was removed by the State Central Committee as national committeeman, the national organization reinstated him.

"Ah, Camille," Reggie laughed, shaking his head. "He got me in more mischief and it was ill his fault.  He's one of my great heroes."

The bitterness of that fight, Reggie said, cropped up again in 1965 when three members of a St. Landry Parish white citizen’s organization filed suit against the judge for holding two offices concurrently.  By that time he had campaigned successfully for two more governors, Jimmie Davis and John McKeithen, and had served in various capacities, mostly unpaid, in their administrations.
When the suit was filed, Reggie was serving as head of McKeithen’s Welfare Department and as a Mineral Board member, both without pay.  “At the same time, I was the only man on the Commission on the Status of Women, also without pay.  There were no state cars or state expense accounts.  I paid my own hotel and bills,” he said firmly.

THE SUIT was dropped after Reggie resigned as welfare director.  The judge said he had told McKeithen from the beginning that he would serve only one year.

In spite of impeccable state and national political contacts, Reggie never sought elective office higher than city judge in Crowley.

"I felt politics as an avocation was more promising, and I liked being a city court judge.  I ran for 25 years and never lost a precinct," he explained with pride.  He resigned in 1975 "'after I woke up one day and realized I had been a judge for more years than not."

Shortly after marriage, Reggie said he and his wife, Doris, "agreed we would live here in Crowley the rest of our lives and our first priority was raising our children."

The judge speaks with pride of his two daughters and four sons.  Both daughters and one son have attended Tulane Law School where Reggie graduated in 1949.

Reggie first came to public attention as a senior there.  While reading a 25 cent detective magazine, he recognized the photo of a man wanted in Detroit for murder as being a porter at Tulane.

AFTER CHECKING the photograph with a few friends, Reggie turned the man in to authorities, picking up a $100 reward. "I got the money just in time for our senior graduation dinner at Antoine’s ... and then spent the next 10 years wondering when Edward Harris would get out on parole and come looking for me.”

"I thought later about writing him and telling him I'd send him the $100 I got, but I never did and he never came.”

Reggie speaks often of his attention to detail while citing his ability to remember names, phone numbers and individual needs of his constituents.

According to his friends and associates, the judge exhibits the same thoroughness.

“He works hard but knows how to relax too,” said Evelyn Gravel, one of Reggie’s childhood friends.

WHEN REGGIE plans a trip, she said, every possible detail is attended to before he leaves.  “He’ll call Michelin Guide restaurants all over Europe to say, “I’m coming on such and such a date, now let’s discuss the menu.”  He does not believe in meeting nature on equal terms.”

Although he and Edwards been long-time friends and mutual supporters, Reggie did not take an active role in Edwards’ administration until 1977, when he agreed to serve, again unpaid, as the chairman of a blue-ribbon commission reorganizing the executive branch of government.

“He (Reggie) has great tact for putting warring factions and principle together – dealing with the four “P’s”: people, power prestige and programs,” Edwards said. 

Edwards and Reggie have known each other since 1949, when they began practicing law in Crowley and have been, with the exception of a few political differences, friends ever since.
When Gravel retired as Edwards’ executive counsel, the governor said Reggie was the logical person to fill that slot.

“He and Camille are political lawyers,” Edwards said.  “They understand the political implications of the job and are knowledgeable about interpreting statutes and their impact.

“Edmund’s a very intense person – fiercely loyal, very ambitious, intelligent and successful.  He’s calmed down a lot, but when we were younger he could be mercurial, rising to great heights of joy but also becoming very unhappy,” the governor said.  Reggie has “a far greater emotional range than I in both directions.”

Said Evelyn Gravel, “Edmund’s taken hold of the tree of life with both hands and shaken the hell out of it!”