McManus, Edward

Iowa state senator, 1955-1959; Lieutenant Governor of Iowa, 1959-1961; U.S. District Court Judge for the Northern District of Iowa.

Lawyer, Democratic Iowa politician, federal judge. Edward McManus, a Keokuk, Iowa native, attended St. Ambrose College and the University of Iowa. During World War II he served as a naval aviator and pilot instructor. After the war he practiced law with his father and brothers in Keokuk and served as the city attorney from 1946-1955. He served as a Democratic state senator from 1955 to 1959. In 1959 he was elected Lieutenant Governor and was a delegate to the Democratic National Conventions in 1956 and 1960. In 1960 he was defeated in the race for governor. In 1962 McManus was apppointed by John F. Kennedy to be the chief judge for the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Iowa. Two notable cases from his judicial career were Davis vs. Synhorst (1963) which resulted in a population-based reapportionment of the Iowa legislature, and United States vs. Robideau (1976) in which two American Indian Movement members were acquitted of killing two FBI agents at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. McManus is also credited with centralizing the operations of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Iowa into one location (Cedar Rapids) and implementing strict pre-trial deadlines to expedite cases.