Alan Simpson (American politician) facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Alan K. Simpson
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Official portrait, c. 1970s
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| Co-Chair of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform | |
| In office February 18, 2010 – December 1, 2010 Serving with Erskine Bowles
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| Appointed by | Barack Obama |
| Senate Minority Whip | |
| In office January 3, 1987 – January 3, 1995 |
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| Leader | Bob Dole |
| Preceded by | Alan Cranston |
| Succeeded by | Wendell Ford |
| Senate Majority Whip | |
| In office January 3, 1985 – January 3, 1987 |
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| Leader | Bob Dole |
| Preceded by | Ted Stevens |
| Succeeded by | Alan Cranston |
| United States Senator from Wyoming |
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| In office January 1, 1979 – January 3, 1997 |
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| Preceded by | Clifford Hansen |
| Succeeded by | Mike Enzi |
| Member of the Wyoming House of Representatives from Park County |
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| In office January 1965 – November 10, 1977 |
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| Personal details | |
| Born |
Alan Kooi Simpson
September 2, 1931 Denver, Colorado, U.S. |
| Died | March 14, 2025 (aged 93) Cody, Wyoming, U.S. |
| Political party | Republican |
| Spouse |
Susan Schroll
(m. 1954) |
| Children | 3, including Colin |
| Relatives | Milward Simpson (father) Pete Simpson (brother) |
| Education | University of Wyoming (BS, JD) |
| Awards | Presidential Medal of Freedom (2022) |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance |  United States |
| Branch/service |  United States Army |
| Years of service | 1954–1956 |
| Rank | Second Lieutenant |
| Unit | 5th Infantry 2nd Armored Division |
Alan Kooi Simpson (September 2, 1931 – March 14, 2025) was an American politician from Wyoming. A member of the Republican Party, he served as a member of the United States Senate from 1979 to 1997. Simpson was the Republican whip in the U.S. Senate from 1985 to 1995, as majority whip from 1985 to 1987 and minority whip from 1987 to 1995. He also served as co-chair of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform with Democratic Party co-chair Erskine Bowles of North Carolina.
Born in Denver, Simpson graduated from the University of Wyoming's law school (1958). Simpson served in the Wyoming House of Representatives (1965–1977) and won election to the United States Senate (1978). His father, Milward Simpson, served in the same seat (1962–1967). Simpson served as the Senate Republican Whip (1985–1995). After serving three terms in the Senate, Simpson declined to seek re-election in 1996.
After leaving office, Simpson practiced law and taught at different universities. He also served on the Continuity of Government Commission, the American Battle Monuments Commission, and the Iraq Study Group. In 2010, President Barack Obama appointed him to co-chair the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, which made several recommendations on ways to reduce the national debt. He has been a vocal proponent of amending the U.S. Constitution to overturn Citizens United v. FEC (2010) and allow Congress to set reasonable limits on campaign spending in U.S. elections.
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Early life
Simpson was born in Denver, Colorado on September 2, 1931, the son of Milward Simpson and the former Lorna Kooi. His middle name, Kooi, comes from his maternal grandfather, whose parents were Dutch immigrants. Simpson has an older brother, Pete Simpson of Cody, a historian and a former administrator at the University of Wyoming in Laramie, Wyoming, who served in the Wyoming House of Representatives from 1981 to 1984, having represented Sheridan County, Wyoming, while he was then an administrator at Sheridan College. Pete Simpson was the 1986 Republican gubernatorial nominee, having sought the office while his younger brother was serving in the U.S. Senate.
Alan Simpson graduated from Cody High School in Cody, Wyoming in 1949 and attended Cranbrook School in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, in 1950 for a postgraduate year. He graduated from the University of Wyoming with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1954. Like his brother, he was a member of the university's Alpha Tau Omega fraternity. Simpson served in the United States Army in Germany from 1955 to 1956 with the 10th Infantry Regiment of the 5th Infantry Division and the 12th Armored Infantry Battalion of the 2nd Armored Division.
After graduating from the University of Wyoming College of Law in 1958, he joined a private law firm and eventually became the city attorney of Cody, Wyoming.
Wyoming House of Representatives
Simpson was first elected to the Wyoming House of Representatives in 1964. During his tenure, Simpson represented Park County and served as the speaker pro tem of the Wyoming State Legislature. He resigned on November 10, 1977, to prepare to run for the U.S. Senate in 1978.
U.S. Senate
Simpson was elected to the United States Senate on November 7, 1978, but was appointed to the post early on January 1, 1979, following the resignation of Clifford Hansen, who had succeeded Milward Simpson, Alan Simpson's own father, in the seat. From 1985 to 1995, Simpson was the Republican whip, Assistant Republican Leader in the Senate, having served with former Republican Leader of the United States Senate Bob Dole of Kansas. He was chairman of the United States Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs from 1981 to 1985 and again from 1995 to 1997 when Republicans regained control of the Senate. He also chaired the Immigration and Refugee Subcommittee of Judiciary; the Nuclear Regulation Subcommittee; the Social Security Subcommittee and the Committee on Aging.
Simpson was a moderate conservative.
In the early 1980s, illegal immigrants were prohibited from working in the United States, but employers were not penalized for hiring them as unreported employment. Alongside Democratic United States House of Representatives Peter W. Rodino of New Jersey, Simpson sponsored the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, which prohibited intentional hiring of illegal immigrants, while providing legal status to those that arrived before 1982. As a ranking minority member of the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration and Refugee Affairs, he drew criticism for calling Hmong refugees "the most indigestible group in society," which Hmong American scholar Kou Yang said was at the time the "worst of all" comments on Hmong.
In his youth, Simpson was a Boy Scout and once visited Japanese American Scouts who, along with their families, were interned near Ralston, Wyoming, during World War II. He developed a life-long friendship with Norman Mineta, who later became a Democratic Party United States House of Representatives member from California and the United States Secretary of Transportation under President of the United States George W. Bush from 2001 to 2006. Their friendship spurred Simpson to support the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, which provided reparations to Japanese Americans subjected to internment. Aside from their time in Congress, Mineta and Simpson also served on the Smithsonian Institution's Board of Regents.
Simpson voted in favor of the bill establishing Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a federal holiday and initially voted in favor of the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1987 (but voted to sustain President of the United States Ronald Reagan's veto). Simpson voted in favor of the Robert Bork Supreme Court nomination and the Clarence Thomas Supreme Court nomination, the former failed when Robert Bork was unconfirmed.
At 6'7" (201 cm), Simpson was the tallest Senator in United States history until overtaken by 6'9" (206 cm) Luther Strange in 2017, 20 years after his retirement. Simpson would later claim to have shrunk to 6'5" (195.5 cm) at age 85.
After Congress
In 1995, he lost the whip's job to Trent Lott of Mississippi, and he did not seek reelection to the Senate in 1996. From 1997 to 2000, Simpson taught at the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy at Harvard University's Harvard Kennedy School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and he served for two years as the Director of the Institute of Politics at the Kennedy School.
Simpson then returned to his hometown of Cody and practiced law there with his two lawyer sons (William and Colin) in the firm of Simpson, Kepler and Edwards. The three are also partners in the firm of Burg Simpson Eldredge Hersh & Jardine of Englewood, Colorado. Colin M. Simpson, the third generation of his family in Wyoming politics, was a Republican member of the Wyoming House of Representatives who served as Speaker of the House for the 59th session of the Legislature, 2008 to March 2010. Colin Simpson finished fourth in the 2010 Republican gubernatorial primary election.
Simpson taught periodically at his alma mater, the University of Wyoming at Laramie, Wyoming, with his brother Pete. He served as chairman of the UW capital "Campaign for Distinction," which raised $204 million. That success was celebrated by the gala event, "An Extraordinary Evening", featuring former President George H. W. Bush (who had reportedly considered Simpson for the vice presidency in 1988) and Vice President of the United States Dick Cheney, another UW alumnus, and his wife Lynne Cheney.
In 2001, Simpson became Honorary Chairman of the Republican Unity Coalition (RUC), a gay/straight alliance within the Republican Party. In that capacity, Simpson recruited former President Gerald Ford to serve on the RUC advisory board.
In 2002, Simpson was involved in the Wyoming Republican gubernatorial primary on behalf of former Democrat Eli Bebout of Riverton, Wyoming.
Simpson was one of four speakers chosen to eulogize President George H.W. Bush at his state funeral.
Iraq Study Group
In 2006, Simpson was one of ten (five Democratic and five Republican) contributors to the Iraq Study Group Report.
National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform
Simpson was appointed in 2010 to co-chair President Obama's National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform with Erskine Bowles.
Simpson spoke extensively about the burden being placed on future generations by the structure of current entitlement programs. In an opinion piece, "Young Americans get the shaft" published in The Washington Post on June 13, 2012, Matt Miller recounted asking Simpson (then a US senator) in 1995 how to fix this problem. Miller stated that Simpson told him "nothing would change until someone like me could walk into his office and say, 'I'm from the American Association of Young People. We have 30 million members, and we're watching you, Simpson. You [mess with] us and we'll take you out.'"
He continued to advocate for fiscal responsibility as a board member of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget and a founder of the Campaign to Fix the Debt.
Campaign finance reform
Simpson was a strong critic of the Supreme Court of the United States ruling Citizens United v. FEC, calling for an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to overturn the Supreme Court's decision in the case. In an interview with Wyoming Public Radio, Simpson said: "I think most Americans would like to see reasonable limits on campaign spending."
Civic participation
Simpson was on the board of directors at the National Institute for Civil Discourse (NICD). He was an honorary board member of the humanitarian organization Wings of Hope and co-chair of the advisory board of Issue One, a nonprofit organization that seeks to reduce the role of money in politics. In 2016, he joined the advisory board of American Promise, a national, cross-partisan organization that advocates for a 28th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States that would allow the U.S. Congress and states to set limits on campaign finance in U.S. elections.
Presidential Medal of Freedom
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On July 1, 2022, the White House announced that Simpson would be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Personal life and death
In 1954, Simpson married the former Susan Ann Schroll, who he had met while studying at the University of Wyoming. Together, they had three children named William Simpson, Colin M. Simpson, and Susan Gallagher.
Simpson's health declined after contracting frostbite in his late eighties, which led to the amputation of his lower left leg and foot. In December 2024, he broke a hip and never fully recovered, and he died under hospice care in Cody, Wyoming, on March 14, 2025. He was 93.
Works
- Right in the Old Gazoo: A Lifetime of Scrapping with the Press. (William Morrow & Company, 1997). ISBN: 0-688-11358-3)
Recognition
In 1998, Simpson received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement. In 2011, Simpson and Erskine Bowles were presented the Paul H. Douglas Award for Ethics in Government for their work on the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. In 2022 Simpson was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in a ceremony at the White House.
See also
In Spanish: Alan Simpson para niños
