Education
University of Chicago. DePaul University College of Law.
University of Chicago. DePaul University College of Law.
During the postwar years, Epton became a successful attorney with a speciality in insurance law. A graduate of the University of Chicago and DePaul University College of Law, he was an unsuccessful liberal Republican candidate for United States. Representative from Illinois" 2nd congressional district in 1960. With John F. Kennedy narrowly winning Illinois that year, Epton lost to the Democratic incumbent, Barratt O"Hara.
Known for being witty and occasionally sharp-tongued, Epton was elected to the Illinois House of Representatives in 1968 and served until 1983.
He chaired the chamber"s Insurance Committee. A resident of the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago, Epton ran against the liberal African American Democrat Harold Washington in the mayoral election in the spring of 1983.
In a racially charged election, Epton came within 40,000 votes (of 12 million cast) of defeating the Democratic nominee. His total was the high-water mark for Chicago Republicans in elections for mayor in the heavily Democratic city.
Epton received 81 percent of the votes of Chicago whites, and 3 percent from blacks.
One of Epton"s campaign slogans was "Epton for mayor. Before it"s too late", which critics declared had racial overtones. By his own account, Epton became uncomfortable with the racially oriented nature of his campaign because he had been an active participant in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.
After his defeat, Epton briefly returned to private life.
Four years after the mayoral election, and fewer than three weeks after Mayor Washington died suddenly of a heart attack, Epton himself suffered a coronary and died in Ann Arbor, Michigan, at the age of sixty-six.
Epton was there visiting his son Jeffrey David "Jeff" Epton (born c 1947), a socialist member of the Ann Arbor City Council and long-time critic of capital punishment.