Stephen J. Murphy

Stephen J. Murphy is an American politician who has served as Suffolk County's register of deeds, since 2017. From 1997 until 2016, he served as an at-large member of the Boston City Council. He was president of the council in 2011 and 2012. He is a member of the Democratic Party.

Early life, education, and early career Born in Dorchester and raised in Hyde Park. His mother, Marjorie, worked as a teacher’s aide for Boston Public Schools. His father, Stephen, was an attorney and a former Boston Police Department officer.

Murphy graduated high school at Boston Latin School.

Served as chair of the Committee on Public Safety during this first term. As committee chair, he led hearings where he and other council members probed matter of underage drinking college students and means of closing de facto loopholes that facilitated the purchase of alcohol by those under the legal drinking age.

Second third, and fourth terms (1998–2003) Murphy elected to a full two-year term as an at-large councilor in November 1997. He would go on to be re-elected eight times thereafter, including to a third term in 1999 and a fourth term in in 2001.

2002 Massachusetts Treasurer campaign

Murphy ran unsuccessfully ran for Massachusetts treasurer.

Fifth term (2004–05) Murphy was re-elected to a fifth term in 2003.

In 2004, Murphy issued a proposal to restructure the way universities reimburse the city for services, urging for them to pay the city more.

In an effort to decrease excessive alcohol consumption, particularly by Boston-area university students, Murphy proposed an ordinance to require Boston liquor stores to require not just proof of identification but also proof of address for keg sales, and to report the name, age, and addresses of all keg purchasers to the Boston Police Department. It was hoped that, if enacted, this would allow police to counter parties with underage drinking.

2004 Suffolk County Sheriff campaign Murphy unsuccessfully ran for Suffolk County Sheriff in 2004.

Sixth term (2006–07) Murphy was re-elected to a sixth term in 2005.

Steve Murphy, as committee chair, called for changes to smoke detector laws.

Murphy opposed a lateral transfer initiative for the police department. As a councilor, Murphy also worked over the years with Mayor Menino to expand the hiring of new police officers and firemen.

Murphy was an early endorser of Deval Patrick's candidacy in the 2006 Massachusetts gubernatorial election.

Seventh council term (2008–09)

Murphy was re-elected to a seventh term in 2007.

Eighth council term (2010–11), first term as council president (2011)

Murphy was re-elected to an eighth term in 2009.

During his eight council term, Murphy served two terms as president of the Boston City Council, with Salvatore LaMattina serving as the council's vice president.

Murphy and Councilor Michael P. Ross filed an ordinance in December 2011 that would have prevented the city clerk from collecting fees from the filing of wedding certificates.

2010 Massachusetts Treasurer campaign

Murphy unsuccessfully ran in 2010 for Massachusetts treasurer, failing to secure the Democratic nomination.

Ninth council term, second and third terms as council president (2012–13) Murphy (far right) at the 2012 East Boston Columbus Day Parade with other politicians, including Felix G. Arroyo, Elizabeth Warren, Thomas Menino, Ayanna Pressley, and John R. Connolly Murphy (standing beside Suzanne M. Bump and Andrea Cabral), in 2013 at a local ceremonial swearing-in event for U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren

Murphy was re-elected to a ninth council term in 2011.

In late-December 2012, Murphy announced he had secured pledges of enough votes to secure a third term as council president, and on January 7, 2013, he was re-elected to serve an additional one-year term as council president. With Mayor Thomas Menino's health publicly known to be ailing by 2013, this final council president term of Murphy was seen as carrying greater-than-usual potential odds of seeing him ascend to the mayoralty (Boston's council presidents are first-in-line to serve as acting mayor in the case of mayoralty vacancies). However, Murphy expressed public confidence in January that not only would Menino finish his current term, but would also seek re-election.

Murphy was a champion of the cancelled Indigo Line transit project, hailing transit oriented development he expected to see arise around eight planned stations between Hyde Park and Back Bay. He touted that this development could provide needed additional affordable housing to the city.

In late 2012, Murphy sponsored an unsuccessful ordinance to redirect many 911 calls from triggering a police response to instead triggering a firefighter EMS response.

In 2013, introduced an ordinance to ban anyone under 18 from attending UFC events held in the city. The propped ordinance attracted criticism from prominent UFC figures, including its President Dana White, and was defeated.

In 2013, Murphy openly considered running for mayor after Mayor Menino made a surprise announcement in late March that he would not be seeking re-election to the office. A crowded field was emerging. With an April 17 filing deadline, Murphy had a very limited timeline to decide whether he would run for mayor. A mayoral campaign would likely have meant forgoing a run for a tenth consecutive in the simultaneous council election. A run for mayor would also likely have prevented Murphy from fieding a bid for state treasurer in 2014, as if elected he would take office as mayor that year, and if he ran but lost he might have trouble recovering from the blow of a mayoral election defeat. However, if he were re-elected to the city council, he would be preserving his chances of fielding a formidable 2014 state treasurer run.

At the start of April, Murphy noted that he feared the possibility that he could come to regret not running if Menino were to resign early from the mayoralty prior to the election (but too late for Murphy to launch a ballot-qualified candidacy); noting that an early resignation would make him (as council president) the new acting mayor, and that (if a candidate) he could leverage the advantages of an acting mayoral incumbency to boost his prospects of being elected mayor (Menino himself had who would be rendered a mere caretaker mayor (a "footnote in Boston history", per Murphy’s description) if he became acting mayor but was not able to be elected mayor in the election following.

In 2014, Murphy pushed for Boston to revive its mounted police unit.

In 2015, Murphy co-sponsored BYOB ordinance with Councilor Wu, which allowed allowed patrons of certain restaurants without liquor licenses to bring their own outside bottles of alcoholic beverage to drink with their meal. He and Wu cited the success of a similar ordinance in Philadelphia in their advocacy for this policy, arguing that it would advantage neighborhood restaurants in Boston unable to secure one of the city's scarce liquor licenses.

Defeat in 2015 council election Murphy lost his seat in the November 2015 election. As the fifth place finisher in the at-large election, he would have had the first right of refusal to rejoin the council if any at-large seat vacancies had occurred during the 2016–17 council term. This circumstance did not arise, however,

Suffolk County Register of Deeds (2016–present) Elections In 2016, Murphy won a four-way primary for the Democratic nomination for Suffolk County register of deeds.

In November 2016, Murphy won the general election by a broad margin over three independent challengers,

Murphy has twice won re-election to further terms as register, first in 2018 and later in 2024. His 2018 re-election saw him fend off a another challenge by Katherine Forde in the Democratic primary, with Murphy receiving 52.7% of votes and Forde receiving 47.3% of votes. Similar to 2016, he once again had no Republican challenger in the general election. He won the general election with a result similar to his first election, receiving 70.7% of votes, with a vast lead over the 12.5% of votes received by his sole ballot-listed challenger (an independent candidate). The remaining 16.8% of votes being tallied for a scattering of various write-ins.

Electoral history

City Council elections 1995 Boston City Council election (at-large seats)Candidates Preliminary election General election Votes%Votes% Francis Roache 18,963 13.5 30,985 16.2 Dapper O'Neil (incumbent) 22,333 15.9 30,524 15.9 Richard P. Iannella (incumbent) 17,970 12.8 28,431 14.8 Peggy Davis-Mullen (incumbent) 17,964 12.8 23,913 12.5 Stephen J. Murphy 14,255 10.1 21,571 11.3 Michael F. Flaherty 14,368 10.2 20,215 10.5 Frank N. Jones 6,960 5.0 20,047 10.5 Paul J. Gannon 11,724 8.3 16,012 8.4 Anthony Crayton 5,299 3.8 Joseph P. Donnelly 3,188 2.3 Dick Czubinski 1,885 1.3 Edgar Williams Jr. 1,568 1.1 Anthony L. Dantona 1,372 1.0 Matthew D. Malloy 1,359 1.0 Maceo Carl Dixon 1,334 0.9 Richard P. Iannella was elected Register of Probate of Suffolk County in November 1996, and subsequently resigned his council seat; Stephen J. Murphy, who had finished fifth in the general election for four seats, joined the council in February 1997 and served the remainder of Iannella's term.

1997 Boston City Council election (at-large seats)Candidates Preliminary election General election Recount Votes%Votes%Votes% Francis Roache (incumbent) 17,495 18.4 32,029 16.9 Peggy Davis-Mullen (incumbent) 12,116 12.8 28,280 14.9 Dapper O'Neil (incumbent) 14,310 15.1 27,591 14.6 Stephen J. Murphy (incumbent) 15,247 16.1 26,702 14.1 26,736 Suzanne Iannella 11,325 11.9 26,505 14.0 26,561 Frank N. Jones 9,912 10.4 24,892 13.1 Paul J. Gannon 9,292 9.8 17,131 9.0 Pamela A. Smith 2,700 2.8 6,287 3.3 Anthony A. Schinella 2,505 2.6

1999 Boston City Council election (at-large seats)Candidates Preliminary election Votes%Votes% Francis Roache (incumbent) 21.648 19.1 30,271 18.1 Stephen J. Murphy (incumbent) 19,623 17.3 27,515 16.4 Peggy Davis-Mullen (incumbent) 16,198 14.3 26,468 15.8 Michael F. Flaherty 14,422 12.7 26,377 15.8 Dapper O'Neil (incumbent) 17,237 15.2 24,636 14.7 Gregory B. Timilty 10,876 9.6 16,068 9.6 Joseph Mulligan III 6.111 5.4 10,0126.0 Andrea Morrell 3,338 2.9 6,093 3.6 Daniel Kontoff 2,004 1.8 John Hugo 1,790 1.6

Suffolk County Register of Deeds elections