Former US Senator Alan Simpson, affable old-school Republican, dies aged 93

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) - Alan Simpson, an old school moderate Republican senator who helped craft major U.S. immigration reform in 1986 and made friends across the aisle, died on Friday in Cody, Wyoming, his family said in a statement. He was 93.

He was surrounded by family and friends after struggling to recover from a broken hip in December, the statement said.

The No.2 Republican in the Senate for a decade, the lanky Simpson was a blunt talker who was not afraid to promote unpopular causes in his party such as abortion rights and gay equality, yet he remained for years a part of the Republican establishment.

A six-foot, seven-inch balding giant, the affable Simpson served as a U.S. senator from Wyoming for nearly 20 years, including from 1985 to 1995 as minority whip -- the second-ranking Republican post in the Democratic-controlled Senate of the time.

His chief legacy in the Senate was the overhaul of U.S. immigration laws that was signed by President Ronald Reagan in 1986.

Some 2.7 million illegal immigrants would eventually win legal status in the United States under the law, which Simpson put together with Democratic Representative Romano Mazzoli.

The reform was criticized by some Republicans as effectively allowing an amnesty, although it also tightened legal penalties on employers who hired undocumented foreigners.

In 2011, shortly after he retired from the Senate, Simpson lamented how political bi-partisanship had declined.

"Now it's just sharp elbows, and instead of having a caucus where you sit down and say, 'What are you going to do for your country?' you sit figuring out how to screw the other side," he told Time magazine.

Simpson's friendly style helped him form alliances with rivals on the other side of the floor, and in 2022 he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, by Democratic President Joe Biden, his longtime friend and former Senate colleague.

Born on Sept. 2, 1931, in Denver, Colorado, and raised in Cody, Wyoming, Alan Kooi Simpson served in the U.S. Army in West Germany in the 1950s. His father, Milward Simpson, was a Wyoming governor and U.S. senator.

The younger Simpson served in the Wyoming House of Representatives from 1964 through 1977 before himself making the leap to the U.S. Senate in the 1978 election.

While a proud advocate for most conservative causes, Simpson had a strong libertarian streak that supported abortion rights and gay rights.

"Who the hell is for abortion?" Simpson told MSNBC in 2011. "I don't know anybody running around with a sign that says 'Have an abortion, they're wonderful.' They're hideous. But they're a deeply intimate and personal decision and I don't think men legislators should even vote on the issue."

"We've got homophobes in our party. That's disgusting to me. We're all human beings, we're all God's children," he added.

Simpson was known for his sense of humor, a quick temper and earthy language -- some would call it profane -- and did not mind using those traits to respond to those he disagreed with.

After reporters used a 1987 White House photo opportunity to shout questions to Reagan about the Iran-Contra scandal, Simpson accused them of sadism.

"You know very well that you're not asking him things so you can get answers," he said in anger. "You're asking him things because you know he's off balance and you'd like to stick it in his gazoo."

Although willing to challenge the establishment, Simpson generally owed his effectiveness to his ability to work within it.

Under Democratic President Barack Obama, the then-retired Simpson formed one half of the Simpson-Bowles presidential commission on deficit reduction that was at the center of raging congressional arguments over the U.S. debt and deficit.

In 2006, he was one of 10 people chosen to form the Iraq Study Group that gave 79 recommendations to Republican President George W. Bush on how to change course in the Iraq War.

When the Republicans returned to power and took control of Congress after the 1994 elections, Simpson lost his leadership role to Senator Trent Lott of Mississippi, who led a new conservative revolt within the party.

In 1996, he decided not to run again.

Simpson gave a eulogy at the funeral service for President George H.W. Bush at the Washington National Cathedral in December 2018.

He used the occasion to take a dig at the highly charged political atmosphere in the United States during the first presidency of Republican President Donald Trump.

"Hatred corrodes the container it's carried in," he told the assembled mourners, which included Trump and former presidents.

(Reporting by Alistair Bell, Editing by Rosalba O'Brien)