Alan Simpson (American politician)

Alan Kooi Simpson (born September 2, 1931) is an American politician and member of the Republican Party, who represented Wyoming in the United States Senate between 1979 and 1997.

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 in 1954 from the University of Wyoming with a Bachelor of Science degree, and in 1958 with a Juris Doctor degree.

Like his brother, he was a member of the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity at the University of Wyoming.

In 1954, he married the former Susan Ann Schroll, who was a fellow UW student from Greybull, Wyoming.

He served in the United States Army in Germany from 1955 to 1956, with the 10th Infantry Regiment, Fifth Infantry Division, and with the 12th Armored Infantry Battalion, Second Armored Division.

Simpson had several run-ins with the law during his youth.

An amicus brief filed before the United States Supreme Court in the juvenile imprisonment cases Graham v. Florida and Sullivan v. Florida, states:

"In Simpson's words to this Court, 'I was a monster.'

In that brief, in support of the claimant in the Supreme Court case, Simpson admitted that, as a juvenile, he had been on federal probation for shooting mailboxes and punching a cop and that he '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 abandoned war relocation structure and decided to 'torch' it.

They committed arson on federal property, a crime now 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, or caught by their parents.

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 a road grader.

Born in Denver, Colorado, Simpson graduated from the University of Wyoming's law school (1958).

His father, Milward Simpson, had served in the same seat (1962–1967).

Simpson served in the Wyoming House of Representatives (1965–1977) and won election to the United States Senate (1978).

Simpson has an older brother, Peter K. Simpson of Cody, a historian and a former administrator at the University of Wyoming in Laramie, who served in the Wyoming House of Representatives from 1981 to 1984, having represented Sheridan County, while he was then an administrator at Sheridan College.

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.

Simpson served as the Senate Republican Whip (1985–1995).

Pete Simpson was the 1986 Republican gubernatorial nominee, having sought the office while his younger brother was serving in the U.S. Senate.

After serving three terms in the Senate, Simpson declined to seek re-election in 1996.

Since leaving office, Simpson has 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.

Simpson was born in Denver, Colorado, the son of Milward Simpson and the former Lorna Kooi.

His middle name, Kooi, comes from his maternal grandfather, whose parents were Dutch immigrants.

In his youth, Simpson was a Boy Scout, and once visited Japanese American Boy Scouts who, along with their families, had been interned near Ralston, Wyoming, during World War II.

There, he developed a friendship with Norman Mineta, who later became a Democratic U.S. representative from California, and the United States Secretary of Transportation in the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush.

Mineta and Simpson served together in Congress, and on the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution, and remained close friends.

Simpson grew to 6'7" (201 cm) and would become the tallest Senator in the United States history until being overtaken by 6'9" (206 cm) Luther Strange in 2017, 20 years after his retirement.

He would later claim to have had shrunken to 6'5" (195.5 cm) at 85.