Edwin S. Broussard

American politician (1874–1934)

Edwin Sidney Broussard Sr. (December 4, 1874 – November 19, 1934) was a United States senator from Louisiana, who served for two terms from March 5, 1921, to March 3, 1933.

Broussard was born in the village of Loreauville, Louisiana on December 4, 1874, to Jean Dorville Broussard, and his wife Anastasie Elizadie Gonsoulin Broussard. He attended public schools in Louisiana. He graduated in 1896 from the Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. He taught for two years thereafter in the public schools of Iberia and St. Martin parishes.

At the outbreak of the Spanish–American War, Broussard volunteered for the United States Army. A captain in Cuba, in 1898 and 1899, he accompanied the Taft Commission to the Philippine Islands in 1899 and served as an assistant secretary. He returned to the United States in 1900 and graduated the next year from the Tulane University Law School in New Orleans. In 1901, he was admitted to the bar and established his practice in New Iberia, the Iberia Parish seat of government. Broussard supported Long's bid for governor in 1928, but not his run for senator in 1930, which occurred during Long's governorship. Broussard had called upon Long as senator elect to resign as governor and turn over the office to Lieutenant Governor Paul N. Cyr, a former Long ally turned opponent. Long remained senator elect for more than a year, however, and did not work well with Broussard as his fellow senator. Broussard even began to praise his former opponent, Sanders, whom Long had helped Broussard to defeat. Long by then considered Broussard "a conservative" in the mold of Sanders and favored the more moderate John Holmes Overton of Alexandria in Rapides Parish as Broussard's Senate replacement.

On June 5, 1904, Broussard married Marie Clair Patout. The couple had six children.