He also studied at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, in which city he was a stock and bond salesman from 1929 until he moved to Los Angeles in 1932, where he was in merchandising and office management.

In 1943 Los Angeles City Council District 13 lay south and west of Downtown Los Angeles, bounded roughly on the east by Sheffield Street, the south by Valley Boulevard, the west by Vermont Avenue and the north by an irregular line from Pullman Street to Fountain Avenue.

In the heat of the campaign, Hampton made a charge in 30,000 fliers circulated "on the eve of the municipal primary" that Healy had at one time been a registered member of the Communist Party.

[8][9] He also fought for a December 1943 resolution honoring Bill of Rights Week that would have put the council on record as opposed to discrimination "against minority groups" and encouraging broadest "racial" unity.

Other members of the council objected to those two terms, and, after a two-hour debate, they were eventually deleted and the motion was adopted, 10-5, in opposition to any form of discrimination and in favor of general unity and tolerance.