Hubert Horatio "Skip" Humphrey III (born June 26, 1942) is an American retired politician who served as

attorney general In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general or attorney-general (sometimes abbreviated AG or Atty.-Gen) is the main legal advisor to the government. The plural is attorneys general. In some jurisdictions, attorneys general also have exec ...

of the state of Minnesota (1983–99) and

State Senator A state senator is a member of a state's senate in the bicameral legislature of 49 U.S. states, or a member of the unicameral Nebraska Legislature. Description A state senator is a member of an upper house in the bicameral legislatures of 49 U ...

(1973–83). Humphrey led the Office of Older Americans as the assistant director at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). A Democrat, Humphrey is the son of Vice President Hubert Humphrey and

U.S. Senator The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States. The composition and powe ...

Muriel Humphrey Brown. He was the Democratic nominee for governor in the hotly contested three-way election of 1998.

Early life

Hubert Horatio Humphrey III was born on June 26, 1942, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Humphrey graduated from

American University The American University (AU or American) is a private federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C. Its main campus spans 90 acres (36 ha) on Ward Circle, mostly in the Spring Valley neighborhood of Northwest D.C. AU was charte ...

, where he was a member of Alpha Sigma Phi, Beta Chi chapter, and is a graduate of the University of Minnesota Law School.Minnesota Legislative Reference Library
Minnesota Legislators Past & Present – Legislator Record
(Retrieved August 15, 2010).

Political career

Humphrey was elected to the Minnesota Senate in 1972 and served as a state senator from 1973 to 1983. He was elected

Minnesota Attorney General The attorney general of Minnesota is a constitutional officer in the executive branch of the U.S. State of Minnesota. Thirty individuals have held the office of Attorney General since statehood. The incumbent is Keith Ellison, a DFLer. Election ...

in 1982, one of the DFL Party's most popular candidates ever in terms of popular vote. He served in the office for four consecutive terms, from 1983 to 1999. On January 13, 1978, his father died of bladder cancer at the age of 66. In 1988, he ran for the same US Senate seat that his father and his mother previously held, but was defeated by incumbent

Independent-Republican The Republican Party of Minnesota is the oldest active political party in the U.S. state of Minnesota. The Minnesota Republican Party’s platform is relatively moderate. The party’s main issues are economic growth, education, healthcare, ci ...

Senator David Durenberger. After this loss he served as president of the

National Association of Attorneys General The National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization of state and territory attorneys general in the United States. NAAG is governed by member attorneys general, with a president and executive committee se ...

, and in 1996 he was state chair of President Bill Clinton's reelection campaign. By 1998 he was again encouraged to run for higher office, and entered the DFL gubernatorial primary, winning handily in a crowded field (which included another scion of an eminent Minnesota political family, Ted Mondale). In the general election, both Humphrey and Republican candidate Norm Coleman lost to the third-party candidacy of Jesse Ventura in a tumultuous race. On September 20, his mother died at the age of 86.

Political legacy

Humphrey was an enthusiastic successor of his father's

New Deal The New Deal was a series of programs, public work projects, financial reforms, and regulations enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1939. Major federal programs agencies included the Civilian Cons ...

-inspired political philosophy, and throughout his career he remained devoted to traditional progressive ideals as well as their more modern manifestations: "If you think that being too liberal means raising the minimum wage, advocating health care for everyone, protecting the environment, taking on the tobacco industry, enacting campaign finance reform, and putting more cops on the streets, then guess what? That's what Minnesotans want." One of his most passionately held principles was his opposition to tobacco and its powerful political lobby: in 1999, the World Health Organization awarded him the Director-General's Prize for outstanding global contribution to tobacco control.

Personal life

While a student at American University, Humphrey met Nancy Lee Jeffery, the daughter of a US Navy captain. The two were married while spending the summer of 1963 in Europe. The Humphreys are the parents of three children, including Hubert H. "Buck" Humphrey IV, who ran for Minnesota Secretary of State in 2002, losing by three percentage points to Republican nominee Mary Kiffmeyer. Humphrey was a senior fellow at the University of Minnesota, where he taught public health policy and law, and was also Senior Vice President at Tunheim Partners, a Minnesota-based communications and public affairs firm. Beginning in 2004, Humphrey served as the president of the Minnesota chapter of the

AARP AARP (formerly called the American Association of Retired Persons) is an interest group in the United States focusing on issues affecting those over the age of fifty. The organization said it had more than 38 million members in 2018. The magazin ...

, and later was a member of the Board of Directors of the National AARP. In October 2011, Humphrey was appointed the assistant director of the Office of Older Americans at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Electoral history

1972

1976

1980

1982

1986

1988

1990

1994

1998

References

External links

* , - , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Humphrey, Skip 1942 births American people of English descent American people of Norwegian descent American United Methodists American University alumni Children of vice presidents of the United States Living people Minnesota Attorneys General Democratic Party Minnesota state senators University of Minnesota Law School alumni Humphrey family People of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Candidates in the 1988 United States elections Candidates in the 1998 United States elections