Labor donated. Contact Adriel Hampton for Congress, P.O. Box 4851, Walnut Creek, CA 94596
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About Adriel
Adriel is a lifetime Northern Californian, and has lived in the East Bay with his wife, Yuki, for the past decade. Adriel and Yuki have two young sons, and live in affordable housing next to the Dublin BART station. Their first son begins public preschool this fall.
Adriel was born in Modesto, CA, in 1978, and live in the San Joaquin Valley until the age of 10, when his missionary family moved to Lae, Papua New Guinea. After returning fromoverseas, his family settled in Valley Springs, where his parents and youngest sister live today.
Adriel is the oldest of six siblings, a member of the Chickasaw Nation, and the first in his family to earn a B.A. Degree, from Cal Berkeley. His youngest brother this year became the second, also graduating from Cal. Adriel was homeschooled by his mother, who now teaches in private school and is working on her credential, and
graduated San Joaquin Delta College before transferring to Cal.
He met his wife, a Tokyo native, at Delta College, and they were married in 1999. Adriel and Yuki lived briefly in Lodi, where he was a sports writer and copy editor for the Lodi News-Sentinel, before moving to El Cerrito. Adriel worked for ANG Newspapers as a copy editor and was soon promoted to to News Editor of the Hayward Daily Review. He commuted daily by BART, going to school full time during the day and working until midnight.
Shortly before graduating Cal in 2001, Adriel and Yuki moved to Walnut Creek, and Adriel took a Assistant News Editor position at the San Francisco Examiner. At the Examiner, Adriel also worked as a city hall reporter, political columnist, City Editor, and Political Editor. He became well-known for highlighting grassroots activism and for some of San Francisco's most comprehensive political coverage. The San Francisco Sentinel named him “Person of the Year” for his coverage of the 2003 mayor's race between Gavin Newsom and Matt Gonzalez, and his political reporting has been praised by the San Francisco Bay Guardian, the San Francisco Weekly, and Beyond Chron.
The roots of Adriel's desire to run for the District 10 Congressional seat go back to early 2003, when he objected to Rep. Ellen Tauscher's vote to authorize the Iraq War. Adriel, along with peace activists of every stripe, visited Tauscher at a town hall meeting on that vote, and told her that if the Democratic Party did not stand up as a clear alternative, progressive activists would be forced to run against experienced politicians like the Congresswoman. At the time, two of Hampton's brothers were in the armed forces, and one was later stationed with the Marines in Ramadi, Iraq.
In 2005, concerned with the future of the Examiner and eager to have a free hand to engage in personal activism, Adriel accepted a job as an investigator in the San Francisco City Attorney's Office. He immediately launched a campaign to stop a monster parking garage in Walnut Creek's Civic Park. Adriel's “Save Civic Park” group was ultimately instrumental in stopping the garage, saving a historic private home behind the park, reducing costs of a new library by millions of dollars, and sharply cutting traffic around the park. He held his June congressional campaign kickoff at the Maxwell home behind the park, with a free barbecue.
In his day job, Adriel helps defend city departments from lawsuits, and prosecute employee misconduct cases. In 2008, he served as volunteer communications director for Daly City Councilman David Canepa's successful bid to unseat an incumbent, volunteered on President Obama's campaign, and joined efforts to block the Bush bank bailout. Also in 2008, Adriel became a leading advocate in the “Government 2.0” movement, urging the use of new technologies to make government more collaborative, transparent and responsive. This year, Adriel founded Gov 2.0 Radio along with two-time Fed 100 award winner Steve Ressler and Deloitt new media expert Steve Lunceford.
In his free time, Adriel enjoys movies, trail running, and spending time with his wife on the Monterey Bay. In Congress, he hopes to work on energy independence, peace and nuclear disarmament, and contracting reforms to make government more nimble and responsive to the needs of citizens and small businesses. He also wants to use his new media skills to help other grassroots Democrats win office.
