Who Bill Is

Ward 5 City Councilor Bill Humphrey (elected in 2019) is a progressive Democrat and fifth-generation native of Newton, Massachusetts. He is a proud product of the Newton public school system, having graduated from Angier Elementary, Brown Middle School, and Newton South High School.

On the City Council, Bill has served in his three terms on the Programs & Services Committee (and its Council Rules Subcommittee) including as Vice Chair, on the Finance Committee, on the City Seal Working Group, on the N-Squared Innovation District Task Force of the Charles River Regional Chamber of Commerce as the Council representative, and more. He has focused on environmental protection, affordable housing, and tax relief and targeted programming for lower-income residents including seniors and families.

Bill comes from a family with many generations of public service to the United States, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and Middlesex County. Bill's mother is a union nurse and Bill's father is a retired public transit planner. As a young child, Bill grew up in a multi-generational household that also included his elderly great-aunt (and one grandmother living around the corner). This gave him an unusual firsthand perspective on aging in place issues and caregiver challenges that many people in his generation did not experience until much later in life.

Like his family, Bill believes passionately in the power of good government and public works to make society more socially just and equitable. Outside of the Council, he has also served as the Chair of Progressive Newton and is a board member of the Friends of Hemlock Gorge.

Background

Bill Humphrey is a political campaign consultant and has a background in broadcast media and writing, including as a former Senior Editor at The Globalist magazine and a senior researcher at The Globalist Research Center, where he worked with scholars and high-level government officials from around the world to promote global cooperation and societal integration. From 2011 until 2023, Bill has hosted a progressive current affairs and history panel show, called “Arsenal For Democracy,” which aired on 91.3 FM WVUD and was produced here in Newton. The show’s goal was originally to promote progressive, big ideas on global and national issues, and to encourage greater participation in politics by members of the Millennial generation, but shifted gears away from current political discussions after Bill was elected to the Newton City Council, instead focusing on deep dives into American industrial and labor history.

In 2017, Bill served as the Political Committee Chair for the Massachusetts Sierra Club, pushing candidates for municipal and state elections to embrace more ambitious goals for climate action and environmental public safety.

Bill is a graduate of Newton South High School and the University of Delaware, with an Honors B.A. in Political Science, and minors in History, Geography, and Political Communication. In college, Bill led the Delaware College Democrats, served on John Carney’s first congressional campaign, and organized student volunteers for Chris Coons’ first U.S. Senate campaign.

After graduating college, Bill served as the Statewide Director and co-founder of Delaware Right to Marry Political Action Committee.

Bill has previously been an active member of Progressive Democrats of Massachusetts and Progressive Massachusetts, the Massachusetts Sierra Club, as well as an executive board member of the Newton Democratic City Committee and a member of the Ward 5 Newton Democratic Committee. Bill earned his Eagle Scout rank from Troop 182 in Wellesley MA and used that status to advocate for local and national policy changes for the organization to be more inclusive and welcoming.