A seemingly larger-than-life persona in Wyoming politics has died at the age of 93.
Sen. Al Simpson was born in Denver but grew up in Cody in the 1940s. His youth wasn’t easy. In high school, he got in trouble with the law for arson. In 2011, he told WPR’s former News Director Bob Beck that he struggled with depression during his time in the Army.
“When you're depressed deeply and you even think of pulling the black sheet over your head, and that was me at 26,” Simpson said.
Yet he went on to attend the University of Wyoming (UW), where he got his bachelor’s degree in history in 1954 and his pre-law degree in 1958. At UW, he participated in the student senate and even served as president.
He started his political career by serving the Wyoming House of Representatives for 12 years. Then, in 1978, he was elected to the U.S. Senate. During his 18 years as a Wyoming senator, he served as both majority and minority whip. He came to take pride in his ability to collaborate across the aisle.
”You can compromise on an issue without compromising yourself,” he said in his 2011 interview. “But the rigidity is not attractive and I've met many people on both parties who are much like a fireplace poker. They have all the rigidity, but none of the occasional warmth.”
Perhaps the most controversial time for him was participating in the confirmation of Supreme Court Judge Clarence Thomas. In the same interview with Beck, Simpson said he wouldn’t have changed his yes vote for Thomas.
“It was the toughest time I ever had. But I don’t have any qualms about him on the court. He’s independent, ornery.”
Simpson retired from the Senate in 1997, but he stayed active in Wyoming. One of Simpson’s cherished projects was the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation. Aura Sunada Newlin is the current director there. She said he was a model for how to stand by your principles.
“When he saw that something was wrong, like the mass incarceration of Japanese Americans on the basis of their race, he was willing to stand up and speak up for the way that was an injustice that never should have happened,” said Newlin.
He often told the story of meeting former Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta in Boy Scouts at Heart Mountain in 1943. Mineta and his family were being held at the Japanese internment camp during World War II. The two men remained friends until Mineta’s death in 2022.
As politics grew more divisive later in his career, Simpson’s bipartisanship started to work against him, even in the state that had elected him so many times. Former News Director Beck asked him about this in his interview.
“In the old days, you were quite partisan,” Beck said. “You attacked people who would attack President Bush, you attacked people who would attack President Reagan. What is it like to have turned into this liberal that nobody likes anymore?”
Simpson chuckled. “As my wife, beautiful Anne from Greybull says, ‘Are you ranting?’ And I do rant. But I can't stand hypocrisy, and when it pops up in somebody running for president on family values while they're diddling their secretary while their wife is in the hospital, I think those people are phony and I rip them.”
In a 2021 interview with WPR News Director Kamila Kudelska, Simpson expressed concern about the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
“I am saddened by what is going on with the chaos in Washington. It's very, very sad to me. It's an assault on democracy,” Simpson said.
In 2022, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In a press release, Gov. Mark Gordon said, “Wyoming has lost a true light … He was never afraid to say what was on his mind, but he believed to his core that humor mixed with civility was best in politics and in life.”
Gordon has ordered both the U.S. and Wyoming flags to be lowered immediately to half-staff. They will remain lowered until sundown on the day of Simpson’s funeral.
