Dick Weldon Simpson[note 1] (born 1940) is an American professor, author, politician, activist, political consultant, and filmmaker who formerly served as a Chicago alderman from 1971 through 1979.

An independent associated with the lakefront liberals during his time on the Chicago City Council, he ran in 1992 and 1994, unsuccessfully, as a challenger to incumbent Democrat Dan Rostenkowski in that party's primary for Illinois's 5th congressional district.

[1] 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.

[4][1] 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).

[22] The third candidate originally on the ballot in the 1971 race, Laura C. Keith, withdrew weeks before the election and endorsed Simpson.

[22] Simpson was reelected alderman in 1975, again defeating an opponent supported by the city's Democratic Party organization, Edward Marsalek.

[27] 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.

[31] Despite being nominated by the Republican Party, Friedman was politically an political-reform minded independent Democrat with roots in the Better Government Association,[32][6][33] and was similarly endorsed by Jesse Jackson.

[12] He questioned the conflict of appointing Keane Jr., vice-president of Arthur Rubloff & Co., one of the city's largest real estate firms.

[30] 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.

[13] 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.

[38] 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.

The resolution creating this investigation, proposed by Simpson and fellow independent aldermen Ross Lathrop and Martin J. Oberman, was passed unanimously by the council.

[30] 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.

[42] 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.

"[45] 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.

[44][47] He endorsed independent candidate Bruce Young, the director of the Jane Addams Center at Hull House, to succeed him.

[44][21] 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.

[48] He was also a Great Cities Scholar and a Humanities Institute Fellow at UIC[4] and served as director of the university's Preparing Future Faculty Program.

[49] Simpson participated in annual studies conducted by UIC to measure how independently alderman are voting from the mayor.

[1] Simpson endorsed Timothy C. Evans in the 1989 Chicago mayoral special election,[15] and was involved in Woody Bowman's campaign for Illinois Comptroller in 1990.

[46] Ahead of the 2019 Chicago mayoral election, Simpson was considered the earliest significant figure to support the campaign Lori Lightfoot .

[57] 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.

[61][62][63] Rostenkowski, chairman of United States House Committee on Ways and Means, was considered among the nation's most powerful congressmen.

[1] His campaign platform also focused on women's rights, universal health care, economic recovery, and senior citizens issues.

[65] Simpson and Cullerton were joined in challenging Rostenkowski by former alderman Michael Wojik and LaRouche movement member John McCarthy.

[68] After Langdon Neale retired from the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners, Simpson applied in December 2015 to fill the seat.