United States Senator
Simpson was elected to the United States Senate on November 7, 1978, but was appointed to the post early on January 1, 1979, following the resignation of Clifford Hansen, former Governor of Wyoming from 1963 to 1967 who had succeeded Milward Simpson, Alan's father who was Governor of Wyoming from 1955 to 1959, in the seat. From 1985 to 1995, Simpson was the Republican whip, assisting Republican leader of the United States Senate Bob Dole from Kansas. He was chairman of the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee 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.
Simpson was characterized as a moderate conservative by The New York Times upon his death in 2025. Contemporaneously he was known as a hardline conservative who was loyal to Ronald Reagan's policies. He supported the abortion-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 the Hyde Amendment. 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".
In the early 1980s, illegal immigrants were prohibited from working in the United States, but employers were not penalized for hiring them as unreported employment. Alongside Democratic Party United States House of Representatives member Peter W. Rodino from New Jersey, Simpson was the main force behind the Immigration 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.
As a ranking minority member of the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration and Refugee Affairs in 1987, he drew criticism for calling Hmong who had fought for the United States fleeing to the US in the aftermath of the Vietnam War "the most indigestible group in society" for their perceived inability to adhere to white American norms, which Hmong American scholar Kou Yang said was at the time the "worst of all" comments on Hmong. 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". Reflecting on his work for the American Sociological Association's Contexts, Rambaut said, "One thing I know is that popular conceptions about immigrants and their assimilation don’t square with the facts." Rambaut saw Simpson's use of the word "indigestible" as indicative that Simpson was imagining an assimilation where Hmong were absorbed into the more desirable Anglo-Saxon race. Natsu Taylor Saito concurred: "[Simpson thinks] they [Hmong] should be fully 'digestible'; their purpose is to nourish settler society, not to change it." Dwight Conquergood remarked Simpson's comments were typical of Western visitors to the largest Hmong refugee camp in Thailand, the Ban 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." Shelly R. Adler likened Simpson's comments to an article in The New York Times that asserted the Hmong were “the most primitive refugee group in America"—to which Paul Pao Herr, a Hmong reader of the paper responded, "[E]vidently we were not too primitive to fight as proxies for the United States troops in the war in Laos". In the most widely read book on Hmong people The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, 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." Simpson visited Ban Vinai for one day during his tenure on the immigration subcommittee.
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 to Annelise Anderson of Stanford University. Simpson advocated for removing sibling immigration entirely, on the basis that in the United States siblings were not "important relatives". Christian Joppke dubbed Simpson "the Republican leader of immigration reform in Congress". In one effort to reduce undocumented immigration, Simpson proposed a national magnetic strip-enabled identity card, an idea that was strongly opposed by both Democrats and Republicans, and likened to Nazi Germany.
Simpson championed the Immigration 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 of white supremacist sentiment, aimed especially at Latinos and Asians 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".
Simpson resented the influence American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) had on protecting senior social programs like Social Security and Medicare—once referring to AARP as "evil".
In his youth, Simpson was a Boy Scout and once visited Japanese American Scouts who, along with their families, were interned near Ralston, Wyoming, during World War II. He developed a life-long friendship with Norman Mineta, who later served as a Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives from California from 1975 to 1995 and as the United States Secretary of Transportation during the Presidency of George W. Bush from 2001 to 2006. Their friendship spurred Simpson to support the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, which provided reparations to Japanese Americans subjected to internment. Aside from their time in Congress, Mineta and Simpson also served on the Smithsonian Institution's Board of Regents.
Simpson voted in favor of the 1983 Passage of Martin Luther King Jr. Day establishing Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a federal holiday and initially voted in favor of the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1987, though he voted to sustain President Ronald Reagan's veto. Simpson voted in favor of the Robert Bork Supreme Court nomination and Clarence Thomas Supreme Court nomination, the former of which failed.
Simpson was considered as a potential vice presidential candidate for George H. W. Bush in the 1988 United States presidential election.
In March 1991, Simpson denounced CNN (Cable News Network) journalist Peter Arnett as a sympathizer for Saddam Hussein over the latter's reporting from Baghdad, Iraq, during the Gulf War. Simpson was harshly criticized for questioning Arnett's patriotism based on the latter's 1964 marriage to a Vietnamese woman rumored, but never confirmed, to be related to Viet Cong soldiers. In a letter to The New York Times, Simpson apologized for disparaging Arnett's family.
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 of Alabama in 2017, 20 years after his retirement. Simpson would later claim to have shrunk to 6 ft 5 in (196 cm) at age 85.
