Edward Rell Madigan

Edward Rell Madigan (January 13, 1936 – December 7, 1994) was a businessman and a Republican party politician from Lincoln, Illinois. He served almost twenty years in the United States House of Representatives and was U.S. Secretary of Agriculture for George H. W. Bush.

Madigan was born in Lincoln and attended Lincoln [Junior] College before starting his own taxicab business. He entered public service as a member of the Lincoln Board of Zoning Appeals from 1965 to 1969. During that time, he was elected to the Illinois House of Representatives where he served from 1967 to 1973. In November, 1972 he was elected as a Republican to the U.S. House of Representatives, and was subsequently elected to nine more terms. Madigan narrowly lost the race for minority whip (leader) in 1989 to Newt Gingrich of Georgia. Madigan served in Congress from 1973 to 1991 when he resigned to become Secretary of Agriculture, a position he held from 1991 to 1993.

He died in Lincoln in 1994, from lung cancer, and he is interred at the Holy Cross Cemetery there. In 1995, the Edward R. Madigan State Fish and Wildlife Area, a state park near Lincoln, was renamed in Madigan's honor.

Edward Madigan came from a politically active family. His younger brother Robert Madigan served as the City Clerk for Lincoln, Illinois for several terms, then sat in the Illinois State Senate for 14 years and finally concluded his public service with a brief term on the Illinois [State] Commerce Commission. Robert Madigan died in 2005 and is buried near his brother and their parents in Holy Cross Cemetery.

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