Robins was a member of the state senate for four terms, from 1939 to 1947. He ran for governor in 1946,[5] and was the first in Idaho to be elected to a four-year term; all previous governors had been elected to two-year terms.[6] He handily defeated the incumbent, Arnold Williams,[7][8] who had gained the office when his predecessor, Charles Gossett, resigned to be immediately appointed by Williams to a vacant seat in the U.S. Senate.[9][10]
Williams was elected as lieutenant governor in 1944, and became governor in late 1945.
The new four-year term disallowed self-succession (re-election) until 1958,[11] so Robins and his Republican successor in 1950, Len Jordan, served single four-year terms and retired from office. The state constitution was later amended, after receiving voter approval in the 1956 general election.[12]
After leaving the governor's office in 1951 at age 66, Robins moved his residence from St. Maries to Lewiston and became the medical director of the north Idaho district of the Medical Service Bureau, later known as Regence Blue Shield.[2]
Personal
Robins married Marguerite Sherman Granberry (1892–1938) on July 8, 1919, in Hazlehurst, Mississippi; she died at age 46 in May 1938 and they had no children. He married Patricia Simpson (1914–1993) of St. Maries, one of his nurses, in November 1939 and they had three daughters: Patricia, Paula, and Rebecca.[15]