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

Minnesota Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 million residents. Minnesota is home to western prairies, now given over to ...

(1983–99) and State Senator (1973–83). Humphrey led the Office of Older Americans as the assistant director at the

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is an agency of the United States government responsible for consumer protection in the financial sector. CFPB's jurisdiction includes banks, credit unions, securities firms, payday lenders, mo ...

(CFPB). A

Democrat Democrat, Democrats, or Democratic may refer to: Politics *A proponent of democracy, or democratic government; a form of government involving rule by the people. *A member of a Democratic Party: **Democratic Party (United States) (D) **Democratic ...

, Humphrey is the son of

Vice President A vice president, also director in British English, is an officer in government or business who is below the president (chief executive officer) in rank. It can also refer to executive vice presidents, signifying that the vice president is on ...

Hubert Humphrey Hubert Horatio Humphrey Jr. (May 27, 1911 – January 13, 1978) was an American pharmacist and politician who served as the 38th vice president of the United States from 1965 to 1969. He twice served in the United States Senate, representing Mi ...

and U.S. Senator

Muriel Humphrey Brown Muriel Fay Humphrey Brown (née Buck; February 20, 1912September 20, 1998) was an American politician who served as the second lady of the United States from 1965 to 1969, and as a U.S. Senator from Minnesota in 1978. She was married to the 38th ...

. 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, where he was a member of

Alpha Sigma Phi Alpha Sigma Phi (), commonly known as Alpha Sig, is an intercollegiate men's social fraternity with 181 active chapters and provisional chapters. Founded at Yale in 1845, it is the 10th oldest Greek letter fraternity in the United States. The ...

, Beta Chi chapter, and is a graduate of the

University of Minnesota Law School The University of Minnesota Law School is the law school of the University of Minnesota, located in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The school confers four law degrees: a Juris Doctor (J.D.), a Master of Laws (LL.M.), a Master of Science in Patent L ...

.Minnesota Legislative Reference Library
Minnesota Legislators Past & Present – Legislator Record
(Retrieved August 15, 2010).

Political career

Humphrey was elected to the

Minnesota Senate The Minnesota Senate is the upper house of the Legislature of the U.S. state of Minnesota. At 67 members, half as many as the Minnesota House of Representatives, it is the largest upper house of any U.S. state legislature. Floor sessions are h ...

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. Electi ...

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 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 po ...

seat that his father and his mother previously held, but was defeated by incumbent Independent-Republican Senator

David Durenberger David Ferdinand Durenberger (born August 19, 1934) is a retired American politician and attorney. Durenberger represented Minnesota in the United States Senate as a Republican from 1978 to 1995. He left the Republican Party in 2005 and has become ...

. After this loss he served as president of the National Association of Attorneys General, and in 1996 he was state chair of President

Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton ( né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and agai ...

'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 Theodore Adams Mondale (born October 12, 1957) is an American politician who served as a member of the Minnesota Senate from 1991 to 1997. He is the elder son of the late former U.S. Vice President Walter Mondale and the late Joan Mondale. Care ...

). In the general election, both Humphrey and Republican candidate

Norm Coleman Norman Bertram Coleman Jr. (born August 17, 1949) is an American politician, attorney, and lobbyist. From 2003 to 2009, he served as a United States Senator for Minnesota. From 1994 to 2002, he was mayor of Saint Paul, Minnesota. First elected ...

lost to the third-party candidacy of

Jesse Ventura Jesse Ventura (born James George Janos; July 15, 1951) is an American politician, actor, and retired professional wrestler. After achieving fame in the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), he served as the 38th governor of Minnesota from 1999 to 2 ...

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-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 Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus '' Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the ...

and its powerful political lobby: in 1999, the

World Health Organization The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for international public health. The WHO Constitution states its main objective as "the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of ...

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 Mary Kiffmeyer (born December 29, 1946) is an American politician. She served as Minnesota Secretary of State from 1999 to 2007 and went on to serves in the Minnesota legislature. A member of the Republican Party of Minnesota, she previously rep ...

. Humphrey was a senior fellow at the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public land-grant research university in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States. ...

, 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, 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

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