Alan Simpson | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Official portrait,c. 1970s | |
| Co-Chair of theNational Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform | |
| In office February 18, 2010 – December 1, 2010 Serving with Erskine Bowles | |
| Appointed by | Barack Obama |
| Senate Minority Whip | |
| In office January 3, 1987 – January 3, 1995 | |
| Leader | Bob Dole |
| Preceded by | Alan Cranston |
| Succeeded by | Wendell Ford |
| Senate Majority Whip | |
| In office January 3, 1985 – January 3, 1987 | |
| Leader | Bob Dole |
| Preceded by | Ted Stevens |
| Succeeded by | Alan Cranston |
| United States Senator fromWyoming | |
| In office January 1, 1979 – January 3, 1997 | |
| Preceded by | Clifford Hansen |
| Succeeded by | Mike Enzi |
| Member of the Wyoming House of Representatives fromPark County | |
| In office January 1965 – November 10, 1977 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Alan Kooi Simpson (1931-09-02)September 2, 1931 Denver, Colorado, U.S. |
| Died | March 14, 2025(2025-03-14) (aged 93) Cody, Wyoming, U.S. |
| Political party | Republican |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 3, includingColin |
| 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 fromWyoming. A member of theRepublican Party, he served as a member of theWyoming House of Representatives representingPark County, Wyoming from 1965 to 1977 and as a member of theUnited States Senate from 1979 to 1997. Simpson was Republican whip of the U.S. Senate from 1985 to 1995, serving asmajority whip of the U.S. Senate from 1985 to 1987. He also served as co-chair of theNational Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform (often referred to as Simpson–Bowles) withDemocratic co-chairErskine Bowles ofNorth Carolina.
Born inDenver, Simpson completed his undergraduate and law school studies at theUniversity of Wyoming. He served in theWyoming House of Representatives from 1965–1977 before being elected to the U.S. Senate in 1978. After serving three terms, Simpson declined to seek re-election in 1996. After leaving office, Simpson practiced law and taught at multiple universities. He also served on theContinuity of Government Commission,American Battle Monuments Commission, andIraq Study Group. He was a vocal proponent of amending theConstitution of the United States to overturnCitizens United v. FEC (2010) and allow Congress to set spending limits oncampaign finance.[1]
Simpson was born inDenver, Colorado, on September 2, 1931,[2] the son ofMilward Simpson and the former Lorna Kooi. His middle name, Kooi, comes from his maternal grandfather, whose parents were Dutch immigrants.[3] Simpson has an older brother,Pete Simpson, a historian and former administrator at theUniversity of Wyoming inLaramie, Wyoming, who served in theWyoming House of Representatives from 1981 to 1984, having representedSheridan County, Wyoming, while he was then an administrator atSheridan College. Pete Simpson was the 1986 Republican gubernatorial nominee, having sought the office while his younger brother was serving in the U.S. Senate.[4]
Simpson had several run-ins with the law during his youth, later remarking, "I was just dumb and rebellious and stupid. And a different person," adding that "you're not who you are when you're 16 or 18. You're dumb and you don't care, and you think you are eternal."[5] For the 2010Supreme Court of the United States caseGraham v. Florida on the constitutionality of sentencing juveniles tolife imprisonment without parole for non-homicide offenses, Simpson submitted anamicus curiae brief explaining his own troubled youth:
In Simpson's words to this Court, "I was a monster." One day in Cody, Wyoming, when Simpson was in high school, he and some friends "went out to do damage." They went to an abandonedwar relocation structure and decided to "torch" it. They committed arson onfederal property, a crime punishable by up to twenty years in prison if no one is hurt and punishable by up to life in prison if the arson causes a person's death, Luckily for Simpson, no one was injured in the blaze. Simpson not only played with fire, but also with guns. He played a game with his friends in which they shot at rocks close to one another, at times using bullets they stole from the local hardware store. The goal of the game was to come as close as possible to striking someone without actually doing so. Again, Simpson was lucky: no one was killed or seriously injured. Simpson and his friends went shooting throughout their community. They fired their rifles at mailboxes, blowing holes in several and killing a cow. They fired their weapons at aroad grader. "We just raised hell," Simpson says. Federal authorities charged Simpson with destroying government property and Simpson pleaded guilty. He received two years ofprobation and was required to make restitution from his own funds.[6]
Alan Simpson graduated fromCody High School inCody, Wyoming in 1949 and attendedCranbrook School inBloomfield 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'sAlpha Tau Omega fraternity.[7] Simpson served in theUnited States Army in Germany from 1955 to 1956 with the 10th Infantry Regiment of the5th Infantry Division and the 12th Armored Infantry Battalion of the2nd Armored Division.[8]
After graduating from theUniversity of Wyoming College of Law in 1958, he joined a private law firm and eventually became thecity attorney of Cody, Wyoming.[9] Simpson was first elected to the Wyoming House of Representatives in 1964.[10] During his tenure, Simpson represented Park County and served as the speaker pro tempore of the Wyoming State Legislature. He resigned on November 10, 1977, to prepare to run for the U.S. Senate in1978.[11]
Simpson was elected to theUnited States Senate onNovember 7, 1978, but was appointed to the post early on January 1, 1979, following the resignation ofClifford Hansen, formerGovernor of Wyoming from 1963 to 1967 who had succeededMilward Simpson, Alan's father who was Governor of Wyoming from 1955 to 1959, in the seat. From 1985 to 1995, Simpson was the Republicanwhip, assistingRepublican leader of the United States SenateBob Dole fromKansas. He was chairman of theUnited 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, Nuclear Regulation Subcommittee, Social Security Subcommittee, and Committee on Aging.[12]
Simpson was characterized as a moderate conservative byThe New York Times upon his death in 2025.[9] Contemporaneously he was known as a hardline conservative who was loyal to Ronald Reagan's policies.[13] He supported theabortion-rights movement and in 1995 and 1996, he voted against a ban of late-term abortions that only exempted life-threatening conditions, rather than all physical health needs. However, he opposed federal funding for abortions by supporting theHyde Amendment.[9] In 2013, Simpson stating that abortion should not be a political issue in a party that believes in "government out of our lives," "the right to be left alone," and "the precious right of privacy".[14]
In the early 1980s,illegal immigrants were prohibited from working in the United States, but employers were not penalized for hiring them asunreported employment. AlongsideDemocratic PartyUnited States House of Representatives memberPeter W. Rodino fromNew Jersey, Simpson was the main force[13] behind theImmigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, which included a provision prohibiting the intentional hiring of illegal immigrants, while providing legal status to those that arrived before 1982.[9][13]
As a ranking minority member of the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration and Refugee Affairs in 1987, he drew criticism for callingHmong who had fought for the United States fleeing to the US in the aftermath of theVietnam War "the most indigestible group in society" for their perceived inability to adhere to white American norms, whichHmong American scholarKou Yang said was at the time the "worst of all" comments on Hmong.[15][16]Rubén G. Rumbaut highlighted the irony of Simpson's derogatory characterization of Hmong in a 1999 study that showed that Hmong students in San Diego schools "outperform[ed] all native-born English-only American students".[17] Reflecting on his work for theAmerican Sociological Association'sContexts, Rambaut said, "One thing I know is that popular conceptions about immigrants and their assimilation don’t square with the facts."[18] Rambaut saw Simpson's use of the word "indigestible" as indicative that Simpson was imagining anassimilation where Hmong were absorbed into the more desirableAnglo-Saxon race.[19] Natsu Taylor Saito concurred: "[Simpson thinks] they [Hmong] should be fully 'digestible'; their purpose is to nourish settler society, not to change it."[20]Dwight Conquergood remarked Simpson's comments were typical of Western visitors to the largest Hmong refugee camp inThailand, theBan Vinai Refugee Camp. "Instead of seeing the Hmong as struggling within a constraining context of historical, political, and economic forces that have reduced them from proud, independent, mountain people to landless refugees, the Hmong are blamed for their miserable condition."[21] Shelly R. Adler likened Simpson's comments to an article inThe New York Times that asserted the Hmong were “the most primitive refugee group in America"—to whichPaul Pao Herr, a Hmong reader of the paper responded, "[E]vidently we were not too primitive to fight asproxies for the United States troops in thewar in Laos".[22] In the most widely read book on Hmong peopleThe Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down,[23] which chronicles a Hmong family's struggles with the US healthcare system,Anne Fadiman draws a parallel between Simpson and the historical Chinese government, which also sought to assimilate the Hmong ethnic minority among them. "...[Simpson] sounded much like the authorities in China long ago who were grievously insulted when the Hmong refused to speak Chinese or eat with chopsticks."[24] Simpson visited Ban Vinai for one day during his tenure on the immigration subcommittee.[21]
Simpson frequently derided immigrants and refugees for not meeting his standards for assimilation into white US cultural norms and was at the forefront of opposing immigration. From 1980 to 1996, Simpson was "the leading voice attacking family immigration" according toAnnelise Anderson ofStanford University. Simpson advocated for removing sibling immigration entirely, on the basis that in the United States siblings were not "important relatives".[25][26]Christian Joppke dubbed Simpson "the Republican leader of immigration reform in Congress".[27] In one effort to reduce undocumented immigration, Simpson proposed a nationalmagnetic strip-enabled identity card, an idea that was strongly opposed by both Democrats and Republicans, and likened toNazi Germany.[28]
Simpson championed theImmigration Reform Act of 1995, which further restricted legal immigration avenues and the rights of immigrants, particularly staunching family reuinification, ostensibly in favor of degree-holding workers.Vijay Prashad argued measures such as the slew of immigration bills Simpson supported were rather a new wave ofwhite supremacist sentiment, aimed especially atLatinos andAsians who were perceived by white Americans as "fundamentally 'immigrant' despite their generations-long presence in the United States". Simpson's 1995 bill "reinforce[d] the idea that immigrants are only wanted for their labor and not for their lives".[29]
Simpson resented the influenceAmerican Association of Retired Persons (AARP) had on protecting senior social programs likeSocial Security andMedicare—once referring to AARP as "evil".[30]
In his youth, Simpson was aBoy Scout and once visitedJapanese American Scouts who, along with their families, wereinterned nearRalston, Wyoming, duringWorld War II. He developed a life-long friendship withNorman Mineta, who later served as a Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives fromCalifornia from 1975 to 1995 and as theUnited States Secretary of Transportation during thePresidency of George W. Bush from 2001 to 2006.[31] Their friendship spurred Simpson to support theCivil Liberties Act of 1988, which providedreparations to Japanese Americans subjected to internment.[32] Aside from their time in Congress, Mineta and Simpson also served on theSmithsonian Institution's Board of Regents.[33]
Simpson voted in favor of the 1983Passage of Martin Luther King Jr. Day establishingMartin Luther King Jr. Day as afederal holiday and initially voted in favor of theCivil Rights Restoration Act of 1987, though he voted to sustain PresidentRonald Reagan's veto.[34][35][36] Simpson voted in favor of theRobert Bork Supreme Court nomination andClarence Thomas Supreme Court nomination, the former of which failed.[9]
Simpson was considered as a potential vice presidential candidate forGeorge H. W. Bush in the1988 United States presidential election.[37]
In March 1991, Simpson denouncedCNN (Cable News Network) journalistPeter Arnett as a sympathizer forSaddam Hussein over the latter's reporting fromBaghdad,Iraq, during theGulf War.[38] Simpson was harshly criticized for questioning Arnett's patriotism based on the latter's 1964 marriage to aVietnamese woman rumored, but never confirmed, to be related toViet Cong soldiers.[9] In a letter toThe New York Times, Simpson apologized for disparaging Arnett's family.[39]
At 6 ft 7 in (201 cm), Simpson was the tallest Senator in United States history until overtaken by 6 ft 9 in (206 cm)Luther Strange ofAlabama in 2017, 20 years after his retirement.[40] Simpson would later claim to have shrunk to 6 ft 5 in (196 cm) at age 85.[41]
In 1995, he lost the position of Republican whip to U.S. Senate memberTrent Lott fromMississippi,[42] and he did not seek reelection to the Senate in 1996. From 1997 to 2000, Simpson taught at theShorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy atHarvard University'sHarvard Kennedy School inCambridge, Massachusetts, and he served for two years as the Director of the Institute of Politics at theKennedy School.[9]
Simpson then returned to his hometown of Cody and practiced law there with his two sons (William and Colin) in the firm of Simpson, Kepler and Edwards.[9] The three were also partners in the firm of Burg Simpson Eldredge Hersh & Jardine inEnglewood, Colorado.[43]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 its Speaker from 2008 to March 2010. Colin Simpson finished fourth in the2010 Republican gubernatorial primary election.[44]
Simpson periodically taught at his alma mater, theUniversity of Wyoming, with his brother Pete. From 2001 to 2005, he served as chairman of the UW Campaign for Distinction, which raised $204 million.[45]
In 2018, Simpson was chosen as one of four speakers to eulogize President George H.W. Bush athis state funeral.[46]
Simpson was involved in the2002 Wyoming Republican gubernatorial primary on behalf of former DemocratEli Bebout ofRiverton, Wyoming.[47]
In 2006, Simpson was one of ten (five Democratic and five Republican) contributors to theIraq Study Group Report.[48]
In 2010, Simpson was appointed to co-chair President Obama'sNational Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform withErskine Bowles.[49] Simpson extensively spoke about the burden being placed on future generations by the structure of currententitlement programs. In a 2012 opinion piece, journalistMatthew Miller recounted that as a senator, Simpson advised the nation's youth to collectively advocate for government reforms through an interest group.[50] He continued to advocate for fiscal responsibility as a board member of theCommittee for a Responsible Federal Budget and founder of the Campaign toFix the Debt.[51][52]
Simpson was a strong critic of theUS Supreme Court's 2010 ruling inCitizens United v. FEC, calling for an amendment to theConstitution of the United States to overturn the Supreme Court's decision in the case.[53] In an interview withWyoming Public Radio, Simpson said: "I think most Americans would like to see reasonable limits on campaign spending."[54] In 2016, he joined the advisory board ofAmerican Promise, a national, cross-partisan organization that advocates for a 28th Amendment to the US Constitution that would allow Congress and state governments to set limits oncampaign finance in U.S. elections.[55]
Simpson supportedLGBTQ rights throughout his life. In 2001, Simpson became Honorary Chairman of the Republican Unity Coalition (RUC), a gay/straight alliance within the Republican Party.[56] In that capacity, Simpson recruited former PresidentGerald Ford to serve on the RUC advisory board.[57] In a 2007Washington Post article, Simpson criticized the "Don't ask, don't tell" policy, stating that "'Gay' is an artificial category that says little about a person. Our differences and prejudices pale next to our historic challenge." The policy was ultimately ended in 2011.[58]
Simpson was on the board of directors at the National Institute for Civil Discourse (NICD). The institute was created at theUniversity of Arizona after the shooting of U.S House of Representatives memberGabby Giffords from Arizona.[59] He was an honorary board member of the humanitarian organizationWings of Hope and co-chair of the advisory board ofIssue One, a nonprofit organization that seeks to reduce the role of money in politics.[60][61]
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.[9]
Simpson's health declined after contractingfrostbite in his late eighties, which led to the amputation of his lower left leg and foot.[9] In December 2024, he had broken a hip and never fully recovered, which led to his death under hospice care in Cody, Wyoming, on March 14, 2025 at age 93.[9][62][63]
The June 7, 1994, edition of the supermarket tabloidWeekly World News reported that twelve senators were aliens ofextraterrestrial life from other planets, including Simpson. TheAssociated Press ran a follow-up piece which confirmed the tongue-in-cheek participation of Senate offices in the story. Then-Senator Simpson's spokesmanCharles Pelkey, when asked about Simpson's galactic origins, told the AP: "We've got only one thing to say:Klaatu barada nikto," quoting thescience fiction filmThe Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), in which an alien arrives in Washington, D.C. byflying saucer.[64]
In December 2012, Simpson filmed a "Gangnam Style" video for a campaign, with a man in a tin can costume. The video, aimed at young people, is called "The Can Kicks Back," a reference to the tendencies of Congress to "kick the can down the road" instead of making difficult decisions about lowering thegovernment debt. In the video, Simpson admonishes younger Americans to make better use of their social media than "instagramming your breakfast andtweeting yourfirst world problems." He advises younger people to use their social media skills and resources to rally their friends to join The Can Kicks Back. If younger Americans do not take heed, Simpson advised, "These old coots will clean out the Treasury before you get there."[65]
.jpg)
In 1998, Simpson received the Golden Plate Award of theAmerican Academy of Achievement.[66] In 2011, Simpson andErskine Bowles were presented thePaul H. Douglas Award for Ethics in Government for their work on the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform.[67] In 2022 Simpson was awarded thePresidential Medal of Freedom in a ceremony at the White House.[68]
Despite his low-key manner, Simpson is a staunch conservative and Reagan loyalist. More than once he has referred to liberal opponents of administration judicial nominees as "bug-eyed zealots."
Worst of all is the comment made in 1987 by U.S. Senator Alan Simpson, who was the ranking minority member of the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration and Refugee Affairs. He called the Hmong "the most indigestible group in society."
Not bad for an ethnic group that former Wyoming Republican senator Alan Simpson characterized in 1987 as virtually incapable of integrating into American culture, or as he put it, "the most indigestible group in society."
More remarkable still, even the Hmong, whose parents were preliterate peasants from the Laotian highlands (and who were at the time referred derisively by U.S. Senator Alan Simpson as "the most indigestible group in society"12), and the more recently arrived Cambodians, who were mostly rural-origin survivors of the Khmer Rouge "killing fields" of the late 1970s, were outperforming all native-born English-only American students; and again this pattern applied for both FEP and LEP students among these refugee groups.
It was the "American people" who did the assimilating; it was up to the "Anglo-Saxon race" to absorb the foreigners. That was the meaning that Senator Alan Simpson, the ranking minority member of the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration and Refugee Affairs, had in mind many decades later at a 1987 hearing when he referred to Hmong refugees from Laos as "the most indigestible group in society."
These perceptions surface in official discourse as well. Senator Alan Simpson, ranking minority member of the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration and Refugee Affairs, visited Ban Vinai for a day during the time of my fieldwork. He introduced a new metaphor into this complex of discursive denigrations of the Hmong. He called the Hmong "the most indigestible group in society" (I987:4).
In 1987, when Senator Alan Simpson, then the ranking minority member of the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration and Refugee Affairs, called the Hmong "the most indigestible group in society," he sounded much like the authorities in China long ago who were grievously insulted when the Hmong refused to speak Chinese or eat with chopsticks.
From the early 1980s to 1996, the leading voice attacking family immigration, especially the sibling category, was Republican Senator Alan Simpson of Wyoming. Simpson had been a member of the Select Commission on Immigration and Refugee Policy that issued a report in 1981 calling for major changes in the immigration laws. [...] In fact, soon after the Select Commission report, Senator Simpson proposed the elimination of the sibling immigration category. At the core of what became a long crusade, Simpson's complaint was that brothers and sisters are not important relatives for immigration purposes; that in U.S. culture, the sibling relationship is simply not close enough to justify providing an immigration preference.
He wanted the government to create a better, fraud-proof ID, like a Social Security card with a magnetic strip. He says that that would have made it harder for illegal workers to produce fake documents. But opponents on the left and on the right called it a national ID card and compared the idea to something out of Nazi Germany.
| Archives at | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ||||||
| How to use archival material |
| Party political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Republican nominee forU.S. Senator fromWyoming (Class 2) 1978,1984,1990 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Senate Republican Whip 1985–1995 | Succeeded by |
| U.S. Senate | ||
| Preceded by Clifford Hansen | United States Senator (Class 2) from Wyoming 1979–1997 Served alongside:Malcolm Wallop,Craig Thomas | Succeeded by Mike Enzi |
| Preceded by | Chair of theSenate Veterans' Affairs Committee 1981–1985 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by Ted Stevens | Senate Majority Whip 1985–1987 | Succeeded by Alan Cranston |
| Preceded by | Senate Minority Whip 1987–1995 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Chair of theSenate Veterans' Affairs Committee 1995–1997 | Succeeded by |
| Government offices | ||
| New office | Chair of theNational Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform 2010 Served alongside:Erskine Bowles | Position abolished |
 | ||
| ||
 | ||
Chairs of theUnited States Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs | ||
|---|---|---|
| ||
| Class 1 | | |
|---|---|---|
| Class 2 | ||
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Academics | |
| Artists | |
| People | |
| Other | |
