Introduction from Hubert H. "Skip" Humphrey - DFL
Hubert H. "Skip" Humphrey III was first elected Minnesota Attorney
General (www.ag.state.mn.us) in 1982, and was re-elected with the
highest vote totals in the state in 1986, 1990 and 1994. In 1993 and
1994 he served as President of the National Association of Attorneys
General (NAAG).
Humphrey has been recognized on a national and local level for, as
Minnesota Medicine put it, his "impressive accomplishments as an
anti-crime activist, watchdog for taxpayers' interests, children's
advocate, environmental leader, and consumer protector."
Anti-Crime Activist www.ag.state.mn.us/issues/issues.html#crime
Humphrey has been praised by Minnesota's largest law enforcement
organization for "fighting to give police the crime fighting tools we
need to do our job and changing laws to help battle and prevent crime."
His top priority has been battling violent crime. He has helped pass
laws to mandate "life without parole" sentences for rape murders, combat
stalkers, commit "sexually dangerous persons" eligible for parole,
create one of the first DNA labs in the nation, register patterned sex
offenders, charge felony penalties for individuals who take weapons into
schools, treat violent juveniles as adults in the judicial system, and
initiate the most comprehensive sexual violence reforms and programs in
the nation.
Recognizing drugs as a root of crime, he initiated tough penalties for
drug dealers, created Drug Free School Zones, and developed an
anti-racketeering law to seize drug gang property and profits.
In recognition of his leadership, the Minnesota Women's Press honored
him for "using his office to push for a less violent world."
Taxpayer Watchdog
Humphrey has developed a number of high-profile initiatives to protect
taxpayers' interests. He is the first Attorney General in the nation to
take on the powerful tobacco industry with an antitrust and consumer
fraud lawsuit aimed at collecting taxpayers' share of the $470 million
in health care costs annually borne by Minnesotans. He developed the
most comprehensive child support initiative in Minnesota history to
collect more of the $350 million in back child support owed to
taxpayers. The initiative included his "Pay It Or Park It" program to
seize the drivers licenses of those who refuse to support their
children.
He also created special units within his office to collect millions in
unpaid state debts and taxpayers' share of health care fraud. Finally,
his aggressive legal action in other areas, such as consumer and
antitrust enforcement, returned millions to Minnesota families and
taxpayers.
Children's Advocate www.ag.state.mn.us/issues/issues.html#children
To get at the roots of crime and other problems, Humphrey puts special
emphasis on children's issues. He is introducing the Education Now and
Babies Later (ENABL) program in Minnesota to prevent teen pregnancies.
This and other work in the area of teen pregnancy prevention earned him
the Minnesota Organization on Adolescent Pregnancy, Prevention and
Parenting's (MOAPPP) 1996 Policy Maker of the Year award. His sweeping
Schools Are For Education (SAFE) initiative is addressing the growing
problem of violence in schools. As the Chair of the Drug Abuse
Resistance Education (DARE) program in Minnesota and founder of the
Partnership For a Drug Free Minnesota, he brings anti-drug and
anti-violence messages to thousands of Minnesota students. In addition
to his lawsuit to prevent the tobacco industry from manipulating yet
another generation of kids into tobacco addiction, he is championing
tough state laws to enforce the ban on selling tobacco to minors.
Finally, he initiated a child support crackdown that will force
delinquent parents to pay over $25 million a year to needy kids. For
this work, the national children's advocacy group, ACES, awarded
Humphrey its highest honor in 1996.
Environmental Leader www.ag.state.mn.us/issues/issues.html#environmental
Humphrey has been nationally recognized as an "innovator and leader" in
environmental policy. He developed Minnesota's Environmental
Enforcement Act, which established strong criminal and civil penalties
for environmental violations. His award-winning Land Recycling Act
provides incentives to clean-up and re-develop contaminated commercial
properties. An environmental self-auditing law that waives fines for
businesses who agree to review and fix environmental problems at their
facilities is also being evaluated as a possible national model. A
national marketing publication said Humphrey is "widely viewed as the
most prominent regulatory activist in the area of environmental
truth-in-advertising." Humphrey represented attorneys general at the
1992 Earth Summit in Rio, and currently serves on the President's
Council on Sustainable Development.
Consumer Champion www.ag.state.mn.us/consumer
For his vigilant stance against corporate fraud and consumer rip-offs,
Ad Week Magazine named him one of "The Ten Most Feared Attorneys
General" in the nation. Humphrey has taken on some of the biggest
corporate interests in the world to protect Minnesotans from fraud,
deception and rip-offs. Because of his national trailblazing on this
issue, Humphrey was given the National Consumer's League most
prestigious national award in 1995.
Tobacco Crusader
www.ag.state.mn.us/press/newssearch.qry?function=tobaccolitigationsearch
As Minnesota's Attorney General Skip Humphrey lead the nation by filing
the first antitrust lawsuit against the tobacco industry in the fall of
1994.
Convincing other states to join his efforts over the ensuing three
years, Attorney General Humphrey had helped array a total of 46 states
in the battle against one of the most powerful industries in the
country. He did not hesitate, however, to be openly critical of his
colleagues when they began what he viewed as a premature rush toward a
national settlement in the spring of 1997. After months of standing
alone, Attorney General Humphrey's efforts were rewarded when President
Clinton, former Surgeon General Dr. C. Everett Koop, former FDA chief
Dr. David Kessler and the heads of all the major public health
organizations joined him in his stand against the national settlement in
August 1997. Minnesota's case is due to go to trial on Jan 20, 1998 and
is considered by Wall Street analysts as "the biggest threat to the
tobacco industry."
Personal and Career History
Hubert Humphrey III was born in Minneapolis and is the son of Muriel
Humphrey Brown and Hubert H. Humphrey, the late U.S. Senator and Vice
President. Prior to his election as Attorney General in 1982, he served
as State Senator for 10 years, practiced law privately in Minneapolis
for 12 years and served as a Deputy U.S. Marshal in Washington, D.C.
Humphrey is a graduate of American University in Washington, D.C. and
earned a Juris Doctorate from the University of Minnesota Law School.
He is married to Nancy Lee and is the father of three children: Lorie,
Pamela and Hubert H. Humphrey IV.
