People enjoyed getting beat by Sonny Mouton

I’ve known many people who opposed Sonny Mouton politically, but I’ve never met anyone who didn’t like him.
Even if it was to debate an opposite view, everyone enjoyed sitting down for a conversation with him. You didn’t even mind when he trounced your arguments (which he invariably did) because he did it amiably, humorously, never with rancor.
A discussion with Sen. Edgar Gonzague Mouton Jr. was always about issues, never about personalities. He loved the give-and-take and would argue just about anything only for the fun of it. Doing that, he nearly always had a mischievous twinkle in his eye, as if he was up to something and knew he could get away with it and that nobody else knew what it was.
Mouton’s friend of many years Billy Broadhurst said he was “probably the foremost Senate member of his time.” I’d take out the “probably.” He was named Louisiana’s best legislator for three consecutive years and was hands down the Senate’s best orator. He was president pro tempore of the Senate, Gov. John McKeithen’s top floor leader for six years, and chaired a half dozen of the most significant legislative committees. He was inducted into the Louisiana Political Hall of Fame in 2004.
His speaking and political skills were directly responsible for finding millions of dollars for buildings and infrastructure at UL Lafayette, as well to build the University Medical Center, Cajun Dome and Cajun Field. That’s in addition to the miles of roads and bridges and other public works projects he helped fund for his hometown and parish.
He was certainly one of the smartest men I’ve ever known. He could grasp complex issues, reduce them to something understandable, and find at least the steps needed toward a solution. That’s not to say that he wouldn’t obfuscate if he didn’t want to show his cards. I can remember several occasions when I asked him a question, he gave an erudite answer, and it wasn’t until I sat down to write my story that I realized that his 10-minute reply boiled down to “Maybe.”
I know personally that he was a master chess player and he also brought those skills to parliamentary maneuvering; he was usually at least three steps ahead of his opponent. He was also regarded as a master of compromise and it took a lot of us a good while to figure out that the compromise he struck was usually for what he’d wanted in the first place. If he needed a million dollars for a project, he’d ask for five million and allow himself to be talked down to what he really wanted,
I first got to know him when I was a young political reporter. He was elected to the Louisiana House in 1964 and moved to the Senate in 1966. He might have still been there had he not decided to run for governor in 1979. Seven Democrats knocked each other out of that race, allowing Dave Treen to be elected the first Republican governor since Reconstruction.
With his typical pointed humor, Mouton cut through the 1979 campaign clutter with a commercial that flashed the hackneyed slogans of his opponents across the image of a large bull. After the last slogan was shown, an off-screen voice asked: “Are you tired of the same old political bull?” and urged us to “vote for Edgar Mouton.” Everybody talked about the commercial, but most people voted for someone else. Nonetheless, newly elected Gov. Treen, named Mouton his executive counsel.
Lobbyist Randy Haynie, who started in politics as a Mouton aide nearly four decades ago, put his finger on one of the keys to his success in life as well as in politics. “He is the one individual in my 36 years [in politics] that I’ve worked with who could relate to the brightest person in the room and the most common person in the room,” Haynie said.
The senator genuinely liked people, and they knew it – though he could poke fun at some of his friends from time to time. (He once introduced a bill to name one of his colleagues the Official State Fossil, and probably could have passed it if he’d pushed it.)
It is fitting that Sen. Mouton died on March 24, Holy Thursday. He was a deeply religious man.
He was buried from St. John Cathedral in Lafayette, his parish church all of his life. He never moved from the neighborhood where he grew up in “old Lafayette,” and he never forgot that, however smart, successful, powerful he may be, his first duties were to family and neighbors, all who will sorely miss him.

You can contact Jim Bradshaw at jimbradshaw4321@gmail.com or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589.