Edward Rell Madigan was born January 13, 1936, in Lincoln, Illinois. He graduated from Lincoln College with an A.A. degree in business in 1955 and managed the family Yellow and Lincoln Cab Company from 1958 to 1973.

In 1966, he was elected to the Illinois House of Representatives, where he served until 1971. In 1972, Madigan was elected to the U.S. Congress, where he spent eighteen years serving on the agriculture committee. Madigan was chairman of the House Republican Planning and Research Committee in the Ninety-Seventh Congress. He also served on the Committee on Energy and Commerce as the ranking Republican member on the Subcommittee on Health and Environment.

Madigan was secretary of agriculture in the Bush administration from 1991 to 1992. He died on December 7, 1994, in Springfield, Illinois.