# Dick Simpson (politician)

Dick Weldon Simpson (born 1940) is an American professor, author, politician, activist, political consultant, and filmmaker who formerly served as a Chicago alderman from 1971 through 1979. From 1967 until 2022, Simpson was a professor of political science at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and served as the head of the university's political science department from 2006 until 2012.
Simpson is considered to be a progressive. During his time on the Chicago City Council, he was an independent associated with the lakefront liberals. In 1992 and 1994, he unsuccessfully ran for the U.S. House of Representatives as a challenger to incumbent congressman Dan Rostenkowski in the Democratic Party primary for Illinois's 5th congressional district. Simpson has worked as a staffer on political campaigns, and has also worked as a government advisor. Simpson has written an extensive amount of published material on the subject of government and politics.

## Early life

Simpson was born in 1940 in Houston, Texas, and grew up as the only child in a middle class household. Simpson participated in the civil rights movement. His activism included being part of a 1960 'stand-in" protest . In 1963, he graduated from the University of Texas. He thereafter attended Indiana University, where he received his PhD. During his studies at Indiana University, he spent some time in Sierra Leone, where he conducted research for his doctoral dissertation. While in Africa, he wrote to his adviser specifically requesting for his assistance in finding a job that would place Simpson in a large city with racial conflict. Simpson desired to live in such a city in order to have the opportunity to contribute to the progressive political transformation of a city.

## Early career

Simpson began teaching as a political science professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) in 1967. He also quickly began working as a political operative in Illinois. During the 1968 Democratic Party presidential primaries, he initially worked as Eugene McCarthy's campaign manager for Illinois's 9th congressional district. He was promoted to work as the manager of McCarthy's Illinois statewide campaign operation, a role that he held up through the 1968 Democratic National Convention (which took place in Chicago). Simpson participated in the protests that were held in Chicago during the convention.
In 1969, Simpson managed the successful 44th Ward aldermanic campaign of William Singer, a reform-minded and liberal-leaning independent alderman. Singer, a 29-year-old political newcomer, won an upset victory over a candidate supported by the political machine of the city's Democratic Party. Singer's victory was by a very narrow 427 votes in the runoff election against an opponent backed by the Democratic Party organization. Singer's election was seen as ushering in an era of prominence for the city's lakefront liberal voting bloc. Simpson also cofounded the Independent Precinct Organization, and served as the organization's executive director.

## Aldermanic career

Simpson served two terms as a Chicago alderman for the 44th Ward, from 1971 through 1979. Simpson has (both during and subsequent to his city council tenure) been considered to be a progressive.

### Election campaigns

Simpson was first elected to the city council in 1971 in an open race. Incumbent 44th ward alderman William Singer was redistricted into the 43rd ward. In the redistricting that took place before the 1971 election, the 44th ward was redrawn to include less of the heavily Jewish and politically independent lakefront, and to include more of the heavily Democratic areas to the west, making it a harder district for Simpson to win as an independent than it had been for Singer to win as an independent. Nevertheless, Simpson defeated the city's Democratic machine to win election to the 44th Ward seat, defeating James B. Kargman. Kragman had the support of the city's Democratic Party organization, as well as the endorsements of some prominent Democratic politicians, such as Adlai Stevenson III and Sidney R. Yates. Kargman was the son of a politically-connected Cook County Circuit Court judge. Simpson was supported by lakefront liberal voters. He ran on a platform that advocated for community control of municipal programs such as urban renewal. Community groups of the 44th ward were in the midst of a dispute with the city over urban renewal at the time of the election. The third candidate originally on the ballot in the 1971 race, Laura C. Keith, withdrew weeks before the election and endorsed Simpson.
Simpson was reelected alderman in 1975, again defeating an opponent supported by the city's Democratic Party organization, Edward Marsalek. Weeks ahead of the election, a third candidate, Wesley Pucinski (the brother of then-41st ward alderman Roman Pucinski) withdrew from the race and endorsed Marsalek. The Committee for an Effective City Council, a group founded to support the election of "independent" candidates to the Chicago City Council, endorsed him and twelve other aldermanic candidates (including fellow incumbents William Cousins, Anna Langford, and John Hoellen) on the same day that Pucinksi withdrew.

### Tenure

As an alderman, Simpson remained a political independent. He was among a handful of liberal alderman on the Chicago City Council. He was an advocate of political reform. He was supported by the lakefront liberals. Throughout his tenure, Simpson remained a professor in political science at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
During his time on the City Council, Simpson was a critic of Richard J. Daley. After he was elected alderman in February 1971, alderman-elect Simpson endorsed Daley's Republican-nominated opponent Richard Friedman in the 1971 Chicago mayoral election (for which the general election was held in April). Despite being nominated by the Republican Party, Friedman was politically an political-reform minded independent Democrat with roots in the Better Government Association, and was similarly endorsed by Jesse Jackson. Daley and Simpson first directly butted heads early into Simpson's tenure as an alderman, when, on July 27, 1971, he questioned Daley's proposed appointment of Thomas Keane Jr, son of Daley's City Council floor leader, alderman Thomas E. Keane, to the city's Zoning Board of Appeals. He questioned the conflict of appointing Keane Jr., vice-president of Arthur Rubloff & Co., one of the city's largest real estate firms. There were other instances where heated arguments erupted between Simpson and Daley. In once instance, Simpson angered Daley so severely that Daley attempted to have the City Council's sergeant at arms force Simpson back into his seat.
Simpson became the leader of the minority bloc of independents on the Chicago City Council. As such, he came into conflict with Michael Bilandic, first during Bilandic's stint as Daley's floor leader on the City Council, and later when Bilandic took office as mayor after Daley's death in office. Simpson and fellow independent alderman Martin J. Oberman were the only two aldermen to vote against the resolution appointing Bilandic to hold the mayoralty on an (initially) interim basis after Daley's death. Like with Daley, he frequently stood in strong opposition to Bilandic during Bilandic's mayoralty.
Being in the minority opposition to mayors Daley and Bilandic, Simpson's proposed legislation were usually defeated. In some instances, the ideas he proposed in legislation were taken by alderman who were aligned with the majority supporting Daley, who then proposed the same ideas in pieces of legislation without Simpson's name attached. One of the few pieces of legislation Simpson managed to pass as an alderman was an ordinance which would prevent banks and insurance companies that do business with the city from practicing redlining. The resolution, which Simpson had feared would have little chance of passing, was passed on June 26, 1974, in a unanimous 44–0 vote after it was amended by Daley-aligned alderman Paul Wigoda. Another piece of legislation that Simpson saw passed was a November 1977 resolution calling for an investigation into figures used the previous summer to justify an 11.7% fare increase to the city's taxis. This came after former city commissioner Jane Byrne alleged a city hall "conspiracy" to raise the rates of taxis. The resolution creating this investigation, proposed by Simpson and fellow independent aldermen Ross Lathrop and Martin J. Oberman, was passed unanimously by the council. The investigation was later ended by a Chicago City Council vote of 40–3 in April 1978 to accept the investigative committee's majority report over the minority report written by Simpson, Lathrop, and Oberman as investigative committee members. While few wholesale pieces of legislation authored by Simpson were passed, Simpson saw occasional success in making amendments to legislation.
Early into his tenure, Simpson and his staff ran an investigation into the practices of the controversial Lincoln Towing Service, which had been a campaign issue during the 1971 aldermanic election. Folk Singer Steve Goodman visited Simpson's office to review documents from this investigation as reference material while writing "Lincoln Park Pirates", a song about the towing company's practices. The council debated taking action against the towing company.
In March 1977, Simpson and fellow aldermen Dennis H. Block, Ross Lathrop, Martin Oberman proposed a piece of legislation that would have established community zoning boards in each of the 50 wards of the city. Simpson established a "ward assembly" for the 44th Ward. This was a form of direct democracy within the ward, which was dismantled after the Democratic machine later regained control of the 44th Ward seat. It was one of Simpson's 1971 campaign promises that he would establish such an assembly if elected alderman. Similarly, some other independent candidates that year had made similar campaign pledges.
In 1978, Milton Rakove, a professor of political science at University of Illinois at Chicago, characterized Simpson's approach to being an alderman as, "an academic idealist at loose in the arena of politics, who cannot and will not make the compromises a true politician must make." Decades after Simpson left the council, journalist and news editor Bruce Dold remarked,
   It wasn't that he and other independents could pull off legislative victories. It was that, fortunately, there was a small band of thoughtful people who thrived on standing up to power. They provided what little check there was on the authority of Richard J. Daley. Dick Simpson, Abner Mikva, Bill Singer, Marty Oberman, they were pretty fearless.

### Retirement from the City Council

Simpson opted against seeking reelection in 1979. He endorsed independent candidate Bruce Young, the director of the Jane Addams Center at Hull House, to succeed him. Young pledged, as a candidate, to support existing legislation and ordinances that Simpson had proposed on issues such as redlining, the creation of a code hearing bureau, starting an independent audit of the city's finances, and the establishment of a commission on governmental integrity. Young's opponent was John McCaffrey, who had the backing of the city's Democratic Party. Young won the election, but resigned soon after taking office, citing "personal reasons".

## Post-aldermanic career

Following his retirement from the Chicago City Council, Simpson has continued to remain involved in Chicago's political discourse. Bruce Dold has remarked that Simpson, "has remained a trusted [political] critic for decades." Among his activities, he has worked as a political consultant, written about politics, run for United States Congress, and taught politics as an educator. In 2015, Ben Joravsky of the Chicago Reader observed that Simpson has remained a political outsider and continues to assail corruption in Chicago's politics.

### Professor and political scientist

Until retiring in 2022, Simpson continued to teach as a professor at UIC. From 2006 until 2012, Simpson was head of the political science department. He was also a Great Cities Scholar and a Humanities Institute Fellow at UIC and served as director of the university's Preparing Future Faculty Program. In his professorial career, he formerly served as and executive board member of the Illinois Political Science Association, serving for some time as its president. He also worked as co-editor of the Illinois Political Science Review. Simpson participated in annual studies conducted by UIC to measure how independently alderman are voting from the mayor. He was also involved in authoring studies by UIC that ranked cities and states in the United States by their level of corruption. In 2022, Simpson retired as a professor and was named a professor emeritus. Simpson has also been a respected political analyst. He was, for three years, a monthly op-ed columnist for the Chicago Journal, and was subsequently a monthly columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times. Simpson has also been a filmmaker.

### Work for campaigns and government transitions; endorsements of candidates

In 1979, Simpson served as an advisor on the mayoral transition team of Jane Byrne. He also served on the mayoral transition team of Harold Washington in 1983. Simpson was involved in a number of political campaigns in the 1980s, such as the campaign of Ron Sable for Simpson's former 44th Ward aldermanic seat. Simpson endorsed Timothy C. Evans in the 1989 Chicago mayoral special election, and was involved in Woody Bowman's campaign for Illinois Comptroller in 1990. He also worked on both the unsuccessful 1990 Democratic primary election campaign of Ray Smith for Cook County State's Attorney, and the successful general election campaign of Republican nominee Jack O'Malley in the same race. After the 1990 elections, Simpson served on David Orr's transition team for Cook County Clerk as well as Jack O'Malley's transition team for Cook County State's Attorney in 1990.
In the 2000 Illinois Democratic Party presidential primary, Simpson was a candidate to be an alternate delegate for Bill Bradley's campaign contingent on Bradley's performance in the state's presidential primary. Simpson served on Lisa Madigan's transition team for Illinois Attorney General in 2003. In the 2004 United States presidential election, he served first as a member of the Issues Committee of Carol Moseley Braun's campaign, and subsequently as a surrogate for the John Kerry campaign. Simpson supported Chuy García's candidacy in the 2015 Chicago mayoral election. Ahead of the 2019 Chicago mayoral election, Simpson was considered the earliest significant figure to support the campaign Lori Lightfoot . He formally did so on August 21, 2018. He helped then-candidate Lightfoot in writing a proposal for council reform that included putting an end to the practice of aldermanic prerogative and banning outside employment of aldermen. For a long while, Simpson was considered the most prominent individual to have endorsed Lightfoot, still being considered such as late as mid-January 2019 (just over one month a week before Lightfoot would place first the first round of the election). Lightfoot would go on to be elected mayor. After Lightfoot became mayor, Simpson worked to advise her on ethics reform. Simpson voiced his support for Lightfoot's unsuccessful 2023 reelection campaign.

### 1992 and 1994 congressional campaigns

Simpson was twice an unsuccessful candidate for United States congress. Simpson first ran against Dan Rostenkowski in the Democratic primary for the redrawn 5th congressional district in 1992. Posing the greatest reelection challenge Rostenkowski had faced, Simpson won approximately 43% of the vote against Rostenkowski. Rostenkowski, chairman of United States House Committee on Ways and Means, was considered among the nation's most powerful congressmen. Simpson ran on a platform of congressional reform, including support for term limits. His campaign platform also focused on women's rights, universal health care, economic recovery, and senior citizens issues. Simpson also pledged to recreate a version of his 44th ward assembly in the congressional district. During the campaign, he aggressively criticized Rostenkowski. In February 1993, Simpson announced that he would file a formal complaint against Rostenkowski with the Federal Election Commission and the House Ethics Committee urging them to investigate $37,750 in spending by Rostenkowski's American Leaders Fund, alleging Rostenkowski had illegally used funds from this group to aid his reelection campaign.
Simpson again challenged Rostenkowski for the Democratic nomination in 1994. At the time, Rostenkowski was under grand jury investigation, and was also being challenged for the nomination by John Cullerton. Simpson and Cullerton were joined in challenging Rostenkowski by former alderman Michael Wojik and LaRouche movement member John McCarthy. In 1994, Simpson criticized Rostenkowski as corrupt and criticized him for votes such as his vote in support of extending the Hyde Amendment. Simpson placed third behind Rostenkowski and Cullerton. Simpson ran on many of the same issues in 1994 that he had in 1992.

### Other political involvement

In the 1980s, Simpson also ran the organization I CARE (Independent Coalition Against Reagan Economics), which opposed the economic policies of President Ronald Reagan. After Langdon Neale retired from the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners, Simpson applied in December 2015 to fill the seat. His candidacy for the position was endorsed by Danny K. Davis, Mike Quigley, Joe Moore, and David Orr. He was one of seven finalists for the position. Judge Timothy C. Evans, who was in charge of appointing Neale's replacement, ultimately chose to instead appoint Jonathan T. Swain.
In 2021, Simpson participated in an effort run by a coalition of civic groups which formed an independent citizens commission that would draw a city council ward redistricting map, producing an alternative proposal to the ward map that would be drawn-up by members of the Chicago City Council itself as part of the council's decennial redistricting. Simpson was a member of the selection commission that chose the citizens to participate in the effort.

## Electoral history
### Aldermanic

1971 Chicago 44th Ward aldermanic election :
| Candidate | Candidate | Votes | % |
| Dick Simpson (incumbent) | Dick Simpson (incumbent) | 8,509 | 54.27 |
| James B. Kargman | James B. Kargman | 7,171 | 45.73 |
| Total votes | Total votes | 15,680 | 100 |
1975 Chicago 44th Ward aldermanic election :
| Candidate | Candidate | Votes | % |
| Dick Simpson (incumbent) | Dick Simpson (incumbent) | 8,876 | 52.78 |
| Edward Marsalek | Edward Marsalek | 7,941 | 47.22 |
| Total votes | Total votes | 16,817 | 100 |

### Congressional

1992 Illinois's 5th congressional district Democratic primary :
| Party | Party | Candidate | Votes | % |
| | Democratic | Dan Rostenkowski (redistricted incumbent) | 56,059 | 57.19 |
| | Democratic | Dick Simpson | 41,956 | 42.80 |
| Total votes | Total votes | Total votes | 98,015 | 100 |
1994 Illinois's 5th congressional district Democratic primary :
| Party | Party | Candidate | Votes | % |
| | Democratic | Dan Rostenkowski (incumbent) | 46,683 | 50.06 |
| | Democratic | John Cullerton | 28,306 | 30.35 |
| | Democratic | Dick Simpson | 12,819 | 13.74 |
| | Democratic | Michael A. Wojcik | 3,888 | 4.16 |
| | Democratic | John F. McCarthy | 1,550 | 1.66 |
| Total votes | Total votes | Total votes | 93,246 | 100 |