- I'm Steve Peck of Wyoming PBS.

With the death in March of retired US Senator Alan K. Simpson, Wyoming lost a giant.

In the latter decades of the 20th century, he was the most famous and most popular politician in the state, and he built a national profile as well, becoming a highly recognizable US senator around the nation.

Years ago, during the first season of "Wyoming Chronicle," we produced a profile of Senator Simpson.

Tonight, in his honor, we re-air that show.

- We're talking to Ann Simpson of Cody, and at her insistence, she's brought along her spouse, Senator Alan K. Simpson.

Next on "Wyoming Chronicle."

(bright music) - [Announcer] Programming on Wyoming PBS is brought to you in part by Wyoming Humanities, enhancing the Wyoming narrative to engage communities with grants and programs across Wyoming for more than 50 years.

We proudly support Wyoming PBS.

- Well a couple of years ago, I started making some trips up to Cody, Wyoming, to the home of Alan and Ann Simpson to talk to them about his family, his upbringing, his life, and his career in the Wyoming legislature in the US Senate, and after.

And in fact, one of the things that we're here to talk about today is really all the things that you are all involved in since your career ended back in Washington back in the middle 1990s, because you're still very active, both of you in doing a lot of things.

So let's start right into that, the kinds of activities and issues that you're involved in.

I could start the list, but I'd rather the two of you did.

Since I'm really here to interview Ann Simpson, we'll start with Ann Simpson.

- So you want to know what we're involved in right now?

- You bet.

- Well right now, my biggest project is to raise funds for the Sleeping Giant ski area in Cody.

First of all, it was to get it going, and now it is operating, and now we need to raise funds to sustain it.

But we are also working on a marvelous project, Winter Recreation Coalition to involve all the outdoor sports and make sure that they're funded.

We're looking into developing a coalition and interested in getting donors to contribute, a one time big contribution, hopefully.

And then we will work to match these funds for Nordic skiing and bicycling and the wild horse project.

- [Geoff] Ice climbing, that's amazing.

- Ice climb, well, the ice rink is a big project for us.

Lots of things.

Some that I will have forgotten, but all the winter recreation because Cody has so much to offer.

And we want people to know about it and bring them there in the winter.

- I think there's an assumption that when someone's had a fairly long career in Washington, and of course you had a real estate career in Washington as well, that they don't really come home.

They stay back there, they become lobbyists, consultants, all that sort of thing.

You folks, of course, went to Harvard for a while, so I'll bet you there were a few people who were surprised, even though you always said you would, that you were coming back to Cody, which you have.

- Well, our boys did not go to school in Washington and were in college by the time we went to Washington.

Our daughter was 16, and they all live in Cody, Wyoming.

So why would we wanna live anywhere else?

- But she's very active in mental health too.

- That's right.

- Very active, and tell them about the Pocatello story.

- Well, as you were saying that, I think of the, Senator Clark, I believe it was that a very well known news person stopped in Pocatello and called, those were the days of the operator, and called and said, "Senator Clark just retired and I know he's from Pocatello.

Could I get his number?"

And she said, "Hah, they never come back to Pocatello."

And he wrote a comment, a column just about what you just spoke about.

- But we had always planned to come back.

And Al's father came back and Cliff Hansen came back and- - Malcolm came back.

- Malcolm came back.

This is a wonderful state, who would not want to come back here?

- Well, and even from the roost in Cody, you're very active in things that are not just local, although you're very active locally with the museum as well and- - The Art Museum of Wyoming University that year- - Well I was on the board of the University of Wyoming for 30 years.

I'm now emeritus.

But I was the one who came up with the idea of the artmobile and did all my fundraising in Washington with lobbyists who did business in Wyoming.

And eventually they named the artmobile after me.

And that has been the project probably closest to my heart.

- Your husband's a senator of Wyoming, and yes, and you do a lot of coal business and oil business in Wyoming, remember?

Oh, yes.

We'll help you out.

- I was merciless.

People did return my calls when I did mention that I was married to Alan Simpson.

- Sure, sure, well I'm gonna use that to kind of swing to a serious area, an area that you've actually worked on both before and after your time in the Senate.

And that is the influence of fundraising and money-raising for politicians who have to raise money for their campaigns and things.

It's going on at full bore almost all the time.

And you've kind of campaigned against that.

- Well yeah, I'll get hell for it again.

But I don't know, as long as you have a supportive spouse, an amiable companion, and wonderful children.

But let me tell you, I think that Supreme Court decision on campaign finance is going to come back and haunt people.

How they can describe a corporation as an individual.

And I think most Republicans seem very thrilled that corporations now can throw in unlimited cash, forgetting that unions can throw in unlimited cash.

And the worst part, and it happened with Craig Thompson, or Craig Thomas, our dear pal passed, he was in his campaign and all of a sudden an ad came up he didn't know anything about, and it said that Craig Thomas was this or that or favored this and that.

And he said, "Who are these people?"

You're gonna see not one of those, it's gonna disrupt your campaign.

They're gonna suddenly dig up something maybe you're trying to finesse and not hide, but maybe you don't want to talk all day about a red hot issue.

So you talk about it and hope it goes away and suddenly an ad comes, disrupt your whole campaign, disrupts everything you're doing.

And I don't see how it can, but I was on a thing called Americans for Campaign Reform with Bill Bradley, former senator, and Warren Rudman, a Republican, Bradley, a Democrat, and Bob Carey, a Democrat.

And all we're trying to do is say, "We think we need to go to some federal financing of House and Senate and presidential races."

Have to put in five bucks, gotta show that you've had a lot of five buck guys come your way before you get the financing.

It's a good bill.

Boy, I tell you, it's an uphill struggle now with that Supreme Court decision.

- Just to get back to where we were even a year ago now is gonna be a struggle.

And that's even further when you go to actual public financing.

- Going to be.

And it would've cost about 1,800,000,800 to do what we were thinking of doing.

And meanwhile, if you don't do that, you've got earmarks that cost 80, 90 billion.

And that's what earmarks are directly result of campaign contributions gone awry.

Or it's time to pay up.

- So Ann Simpson, you would've seen this firsthand, the amount of time that a politician, a legislator has to put into campaigning and raising money, and I guess I'd like to get your view on that too.

I mean, as opposed to the business of governing, of legislating, there is a great deal of that work that just goes into raising money.

- Well I certainly don't know what the answer is, but I know that I remember seeing Al making calls in his first campaign raising funds, and that was always the toughest thing to do.

And the access of people who have been big contributors, that's just state-of-the-art.

- Well, and in fact, that is what contributors expect.

They expect access.

- They hope that people who've worked hard on your campaign believe in you, but they also want you to believe in them.

So there is no easy answer.

- Yeah.

Well let's just look at the period when you were back in Washington and serving in the Senate and how it has or hasn't changed from that time.

I mean, you left in the '90s when there was a bit of what they called the Gingrich Revolution had taken place in the House, and a lot of that had come over into the Senate as well.

And it seems as if the ability to work across the aisle and accept kind of diverse views has diminished.

But I don't wanna put words in anybody's mouth.

You talk about how you think things have changed.

- Well, it's a tremendous difference.

We had social events with colleagues.

There were some giants in the Senate when I was there, at least in my mind, to others, maybe not, but Russell Long, Jack Javits, Scoop Jackson, Abe Ribikoff.

There were some people who you... Or Mark Hatfield, Magnuson.

I mean, there was a posse of them.

And you worked with him.

There was a cordiality, Kennedy.

Kennedy came there with dad the same year, Dad was one ahead of him in seniority.

He said, "Don't forget that, kid, I'm ahead of you."

And so dad, when I went to the Senate, dad said, "Get to know Kennedy."

We didn't agree on things, but I enjoyed the kid, and he caused his parents as much pain as you've caused your mother and I, and we laughed, but I did get to know him, became a great friend.

And there was a reason.

He never violated his word with me once.

I don't care about his life or what he did.

But nowadays it's just, instead of saying, "This idea is stupid and idiotic and boneheaded," it's now, "This person is stupid and idiotic and boneheaded."

A big difference between calling the issue a pile of something and calling the person a pile of something.

And that's the difference.

Now it's all personal.

And boy, nail them, and it is unsavory to say the least.

- There's another change you've talked to me about before too, and that was, you described coming to the Senate when it was kind of a dark chamber and then the lights went on.

Ah when we say lights, we mean these kinds of lights.

We were talking about television.

And how that changed the personality and the way in which people communicated with each other.

- Well, here's one for you.

You brought up the name Newt Gingrich.

George Bush, this last one minute and a half, George Bush violated his pledge because he could get a package which called for structural reform, two year budgeting, getting the entitlements under control.

And he said, "Look, it's gonna be suicide if I do that.

So you Republicans have to stick."

The House the Senate Republicans stuck, we voted in the Senate, it was 62 to something, it went to the House, and Newt got up and said, you know, and he voted against it and urged others to vote against it.

And they said, "What are you doing?

You were out there and you agreed."

He said, "Well, I did while I was part of the group, but now I'm voting as an individual."

And you go look at the roll call vote.

Here's Newt Gingrich and Pete Stark and I mean all the liberals and conservatives, Army and Howard Berman and Barney Frank, all voting together to cremate George Bush.

That's not my idea of much politics now.

People don't like that when I bring it up.

But go look at the roll call vote, and go look at the clip in "The American Experience" on PBS of Newt Gingrich saying, "When I was in there, I was for it as a group, but now I'm voting as a person," which just took everybody by a gasping surprise.

And we lost everything.

We lost everything we wouldn't even be talking about now.

- I've talked to a number of friends of yours and colleagues of yours from those days, Jim Baker and your friend, the historian David McCullough as well.

And they've talked about hoping for a return to the kind of civility that existed.

And I mean, we know there was fireworks.

It wasn't all, you know, my esteemed friend and all that sort of thing.

There was some real tough talk, but I guess they're talking about a different way of dealing with people in a different frame of mind among politicians in office.

You wanna talk about that a little bit?

What would that be?

- It certainly seems to me that when so many of the House members came over young and feisty, that certainly changed the tone.

The senders had been a more seasoned, disciplined group.

And that really was a very distinct change that I felt.

- And this would've been in the late '80s and '90s as that shift began.

- Spouses too.

The spouses.

- That's right.

- And they never saw the spouses then when the House members had been used to leaving their spouses at home, when they came to the Senate for a six year term, they still did.

And so the social interaction diminished.

- And it's even moreso now that fewer and fewer spouses come because of the workload.

And why be in Washington if your husband's leaving for the weekend and going back to the state, you might as well stay there.

You wouldn't see him anyway.

- And that's actually an interesting point you raised, and I think this has come up in our conversations as well, that part of what made for those collegial relationships and that ability to work through differences and problems was that you all knew each other in a much deeper way as couples, as families.

And I guess that isn't as true anymore.

- And certainly traveling together was the most important way to get to know other couples.

- You said that before.

- The non-partisan issues.

But that's where we developed our friendships with the other side of the aisle.

- And you're talking about traveling on fact finding trips, trips abroad and things.

- Well, they were called, anytime you went, they were called a junket.

So you had to show, and I would go to the people around me and say, "Here, I'm going to China.

What am I gonna do?"

Well I'm gonna go to Taiwan and meet the Governor Mike Sullivan.

We're gonna work on trade, we're gonna go on into the interior, we're gonna go with a bunch of Democrats, Republican.

Ann's going with me, I'm paying her all her own, all her way, I'm paying that.

But still, it was called a junket.

And unfortunately, I think it was three or four years ago, I think 64% of the House Republicans said proudly, "I don't have a passport."

Well, I'll tell you, gang, if you don't have a passport and know what the hell's going on in the rest of the world, this country's in deep trouble.

This is not the USA anymore, it's classical world things, and it's not world government or the UN running Wyoming.

It's not that, it's just knowledge.

- But I mentioned to you before that for us, the junkets were not as effective as the Aspen Institute groups, which were not federally funded.

They were privately funded.

And we stayed in one place and had sessions the wives participated in.

And then we'd spend time in the afternoon and evening together.

Those were great bonding experiences.

- When you look at Washington today, we've got a pretty ambitious administration came in with a whole new set of agendas, just as the Bush administration before them had and ran into kind of a wall, certainly on healthcare reform, which is an issue that both parties I think aspire to deal with, but can't seem to come even anywhere near agreeing.

I guess I'd ask you to take a little thought about a couple of these big issues like healthcare reform.

Do you see any way for something like that to happen?

Or should it not happen?

- Well, it will happen because you have a Democratic president and a Democratic House and the Democratic Senate who promised under God's oath that they would produce a healthcare bill.

Years ago, you're too young to remember, there was a labor bill passed, Humphrey Hawkins.

It was nothing, it was a sparrow belch, but it was a labor bill trying to get rid of Taft Hartley, which was the one they hated.

So they always said we'd passed a labor bill, but it was nothing.

They will pass something, and it will be nothing.

However, they will split up, they'll get into some splitting up, and that'll work.

But the tragedy of it all, the minute I saw it is that they set a deadline.

We're gonna have this by December 1st.

You can't do that to a legislature or to judges.

You cannot set a deadline.

And they did.

And of course they've not met any of them.

So I think you're gonna see them split up.

There's gonna be pre-existing conditions, there's gonna be this or that, or there'll be something with regard to whatever.

But they'll split up something and come up with something, there won't be any question that they'll walk away this session without saying, "We did a healthcare bill."

- And do you think any Republicans are likely to cross that line?

- Yeah, I think they will because they will break it up into something that's palatable.

Because now he has no choice because of this.

And don't forget this new guy, he isn't really there because he's a quote, great Republican.

In fact, he's a pro-choice Catholic.

- We're gonna talk about that in a moment too.

- It was a shocking thing, but they were P-O's at the Democrats and the Republicans.

This is the American people rising.

Which is great.

Because America and the American people are smarter than their politicians and they always have been.

Massachusetts should not thrill anybody, but it should thrill everybody because it shows the American people are tired of this guff from both sides, tired of not dealing with the tough issues of entitlements and social security.

I mean, ladies and gentlemen, there's only one way to save social security.

Either raise the payroll tax or reduce the benefits or do something to affluence test the benefits.

- There you go.

You're saying things that I know your party in power right now would probably not agree with.

Everybody's afraid of that, Democrats too.

- But don't forget that commission vote was 53 votes to set it up, very bipartisan.

And when this thing airs, I'll be involved in things in that area again.

- Well let's talk a little bit about some of these third rail issues that people do have to stay away from now.

Social issues are obviously, there's an interesting contrast to me between different kinds of conservatism.

There's the kind of Edmund Burke and even libertarian conservatism where it's minimal government, keep your hands off people's lives.

But there's social conservatives now too who kind of reach in and wanna use the government to kind of correct the way people live as they see it.

You were pro-choice.

I think that's a pretty unusual position for a Republican these days.

I assume there's been no wavering on that.

- No, but let Ann describe what she helped me with when people would ask how you- - Well I know that was the toughest decision I ever made.

And for me, it was very simple.

I'm opposed to abortion, but I also believe women should have a choice.

I don't believe government should be in it at all.

And there's no one who's pushing for abortions.

We have an adopted grandchild of our own.

And there is no way that government should be involved in that, in my opinion.

- Well, and it wasn't Ann that influenced me, but she helped me when she said, "Al, just tell people no one's for abortion."

Who in the hell's for abortion?

It's terrible.

But it's a deeply intimate and personal decision.

I've often said, and I don't think men legislators should even vote on the issue.

- I was gonna ask you- - Which really smokes people.

- I'll bet.

- I always check, I said, "Do I need to check with you if I get a vasectomy?"

I mean, I don't believe I do.

I mean, this is nuts.

And, and it destroys our party, these social issues.

And don't forget how we just won the governorship of Virginia and New Jersey and the senator in Massachusetts.

Guess what?

They didn't get cornered in the issue of abortion or cornered in the issue of homosexuals, either gays or lesbians.

We're all God's children.

What is this about?

So it's fascinating to me to see that all three were elected and all three of them because they didn't get tangled up in the emotional to treat us of these things.

- Go ahead, please.

- It is interesting.

To me, I think comforting thing is that we've seen what's happened with the extremes of both sides.

And that we've also seen an election that proved people are tired of that.

And so, as Al's father used to say, the teeter board of life goes up and the teeter board of life goes down.

We have to learn the hard way all the time.

So hopefully the country is learning.

- Well, I know when you announced that you weren't gonna run against in 1995, you said, "Yeah, things get extreme on either side, they just do.

But always things fill in at the center."

When's that gonna happen?

- It will happen because of this vote in Massachusetts.

- I think that's a good indicator.

- This is like the cracking of the arctic ice cap to a politician.

Let me tell you, I just wish I could have been in the caucuses the next week of the Democrats and Republicans saying, "Holy smokes, they really don't like us both, and they really want us to get off our butts and do something."

And to do something is not to get rid of fraud, waste, and abuse, and foreign aid.

That's a sparrow belch.

There's nothing in there to get money, that's less than 1%.

It's social security, the entitlements, and Medicare.

And until you get into there and dig and slay sacred cows, this is a disaster.

- Well we sort of see that with Obama's freeze.

What it really freezes is so little because the big entitlement programs go on and on.

And I don't know how you feel about this, but do you think we're heading over a precipice with all the kind of deficit spending we're doing?

- Well, I live with a woman who was from Big Horn County, Greybull.

She said, "Alan, you people in Cody were always on credit.

We paid cash in Greybull."

And she has trained me after 78 years, we paid off all our debt.

And if you can't imagine your own life as to what the national life is, the Chinese people are waiting like vultures on the edge of the cliff.

They've got all our treasury bills and they're just saying, "Well, keep doing what you're doing and we'll be right here to gather up the pieces."

- There are examples all over the world that unlimited spending doesn't work.

- Empires fall.

It happens unfortunately.

- The good thing is they're showing figures now that here's the revenue and here's the expenditure.

And no one is questioning the figure.

And it's billions, hundreds of billions apart, trillions apart.

Well, stop me, hit me.

- Well, I mean again, the willingness to take on those kinds of issues though, which is sadly lacking I think in Washington these days.

People are pretty gun shy there about- - I think it will take place and very soon.

- Okay, let's talk a little bit more then about the kinds of activities that you all are still involved in.

I just feel I have to emphasize again, if anybody thought that we were doing the kind of definitive piece on Senator Simpson and Ann Simpson's lives, we don't think so for a minute.

There's still a lot going on.

So I know some of the things you're involved in, a campaign for literacy or for reading, writing, excuse me, that you've been involved with former Senator Bob Carey.

Of course, your work with Bill Bradley on campaign finance reform.

There was tort reform for a while.

You were involved in some efforts in that area.

- Yes.

My sons have talked to me about that.

- [Geoff] You have attorneys for sons, of course.

- And Jerry Spence and I and Barry Mahoney started the (indistinct) Mike started the Wyoming Trial Lawyers Association.

And they say, "Dad, what are you doing?"

I said, "I changed my mind."

- Jerry Spence still has some words of advice for you on that too.

- Okay, I love the guy.

He's a piece of work.

And we have had titanic struggles of the best order.

What?

Sit up?

- Sit up.

- Sit up, I am sitting up front.

No, that's right.

Well, where were we?

- You know, you've been very lucky to have Ann Simpson beside you in a lot of things because she puts the zipper on the mouth every now and then.

I've been through that experience walking with you at one point when she stepped in, and this goes into the whole other area that was part of your very public career and statements about the media.

- I could not have ever succeeded in life without this woman.

Because I think I must share this.

We've been married a few years and I said, "Why did we wait that time?"

I kind of proposed in a clumsy way and she bit, and then we waited a year.

I said, "Why did we wait that year?"

And she said, "Well, I'll tell you why.

I thought you were a lush, or you might be a lush.

You really loved to suck up the suds and smoke the cigarettes.

And I didn't want to be married to anybody like that."

And I thought, "Wow, what a wonderful thing to say about a wonderful man."

What?

- He was good raw material though.

- Well, you know, that whole thing though, the way you dealt with the media, which loved you initially, and then some of the big bumps that you hit with him, Ann Simpson, you watched all that unfold and you watched that happen and you pulled him back a couple of times.

- Well he was getting in too deep.

He just kept getting in deeper and deeper.

And I said something I've never said to him before and never said since, "You just have to shut up because you've gone too far.

You've been so admired here, and what are you doing?

You're just kicking yourself in the leg."

- Well you know something?

We're out of time and you just said that.

So we don't even have to ask Senator Simpson for another comment at this point.

- You just kicked me.

(group laughing) - No, good.

- I wanna thank you both.

I mean, we've had tremendous access that you've offered us for all your distrust to the media.

- I don't distrust it.

I said the First Amendment belongs to me too.

That's all I felt.

You know, that I'm supposed to stay silent.

- [Geoff] Ann, this is when you say- - I'm supposed to stay silent while they hammer me.

I don't stay silent, I hammer them.

- He just believes it has to go both ways.

- I do.

I do indeed.

And I always was invited back, Larry King, Charlie Rose, saw Charlie last week, gave him a big hug.

- But the old saying, never get in a fight with anyone who buys ink by the barrel.

- I couldn't, I didn't believe that at all, and I lost every time.

- Thank you very much for being with us.

And I'm just gonna say to the folks at home, "Wyoming Chronicle," you can access this on wyomingpbs.org if you wanna see back shows or if you need to review this one to see if we told the truth all through it.

Again, thank you both very much for being with us, and folks, come back to "Wyoming Chronicle."

- It's been a delight working with you.

- Well, my pleasure.

(bright music)