Former Wyoming Sen. Alan K. Simpson, one of the most colorful lawmakers in recent congressional history, died Friday at age 93 while recovering from a broken hip he sustained in December.

The three-term Republican senator stood out for his candor, humor and willingness to work across party lines — not to mention his height.

At 6-foot-7, he held the Senate record until it was broken by Luther Strange, an Alabama Republican who stood 6-foot-9.

“What son of a bitch did that?” Simpson asked in a 2017 interview when told of losing his height record.

Senators lauded Simpson during floor speeches Friday. “Integrity, work ethic, incredible wit, Al truly leaves behind a legendary career,” GOP Whip John Barrasso, R-Wyo., said.

“Those who were privileged enough to call him friend enjoyed his … truly fierce loyalty,” Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., added.

Sen. Richard J. Durbin, D-Ill., a member of a debt reduction commission co-chaired by the then-retired Simpson in 2010, said he wasn’t sure what it would be like working with Simpson since he was a Republican and “we’d never served together in the Senate.” But, Durbin said, “He took me under his shoulder like any member of his own party or family.”

Simpson made a lasting mark with the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, established by then-President Barack Obama to write a bipartisan deficit reduction plan. He co-chaired the commission with Erskine Bowles, a onetime chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, and before long it was commonly referred to as “Simpson-Bowles.”

The panel wrote a plan to reduce deficits by $3.9 trillion through spending cuts to defense and domestic programs, overhauling the tax system, raising the Social Security retirement age and other measures. It fell three votes short of the 14 required for it to advance to expedited consideration in Congress. But it went on to influence subsequent presidential and congressional budgets and deficit reduction proposals.

Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, called the effort “perhaps the greatest fiscal contribution this century in terms of generating ideas, showing where compromises can occur, and educating the public.”

Simpson had as much as predicted his continuing involvement in public policy — which would extend for more than two decades — when he announced his retirement from the Senate in 1995.

He said he planned to continue the same level of “hell-raising” that characterized his 17 years on Capitol Hill. “This is not life,” he said of the Senate. “This is a part of life. And politics is rather barbaric.”

Asked then if he was interested in joining the Cabinet if then Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, R-Kan., were elected president, Simpson said no. “That would be a disaster for me,” he said. “I can’t administer my way out of a paper sack.”

Besides his work on the fiscal commission, Simpson took on numerous other roles, lecturing at the Kennedy School of Government, serving on the American Battle Monuments Commission and co-chairing a Continuity in Government Commission.

Years later during a visit to the Capitol with a granddaughter, Simpson bemoaned the divisiveness he saw in Congress. “It’s hard to watch how harsh it’s become,” he said. “We didn’t bang each other like pinballs. The American people don’t want that.”

When former Rep. Liz Cheney made her first bid for Congress, challenging incumbent Wyoming Republican Sen. Michael B. Enzi in 2014, Simpson stuck with Enzi and Cheney dropped her bid.

Simpson supported Cheney when she ran for the House in 2016, and continued to back her after she was defeated in a 2022 primary following her battle with President Donald Trump as a member of the Jan. 6 select committee that investigated the Capitol riot.

“Don’t worry about her,” Simpson said in an interview at the time. He said he expected Cheney to spend the rest of her life working to keep Trump, whom he called a “destroyer of democracy,” away from the White House.

Born in Denver in 1931, Simpson graduated from high school in Cody, Wyoming, and attended the University of Wyoming, next joining the Army where he served in the infantry from 1954 to 1956.

He earned a law degree from the University of Wyoming and worked in his father’s law practice until his election to the Wyoming House in 1964, where he served until 1977. Simpson won election to the U.S. Senate in 1978, serving until 1997. He was Senate GOP majority whip from 1985 to 1987, and continued as GOP minority whip until 1995.

As a senator, Simpson advocated for overhauling Social Security and making changes to Medicare to prevent their trust funds from becoming insolvent, tightening the border and other issues. He defended a GOP plan to curb Medicare cost growth in 1995, saying the “numbers … mean everyone will have to sober up,” rather than “just sit and watch Medicare go broke.”

President Joe Biden awarded Simpson the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, in 2022, calling him “the most decent, stand-up, genuine guy I’ve ever served with.”

“This is one of the finest men I’ve ever worked with,” Biden said, adding, “At his core, he’s always believed in the common good and what’s best for the nation.”

Beyond public policy, Simpson was an active supporter of the University of Wyoming and the Buffalo Bill Center of the West. He chaired the center’s board of trustees from 1992 to 2011 and continued as a trustee until last year.

“Few people have ever done as much for the Center of the West,” Rebecca West, the Buffalo Bill center’s CEO, said in a statement. She added that Simpson “ranks alongside William F. ‘Buffalo Bill’ Cody as someone who has embodied the spirit of the American West and the essence of the town of Cody.”

Simpson is survived by his wife, Ann; brother Pete Simpson; sons Colin Simpson and William Simpson; and daughter Susan Simpson Gallagher.

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(CQ-Roll Call's Niels Lesniewski contributed to this report.)

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