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.

Pushing the 1986 immigration reform bill through Congress — his major legislative accomplishment — was like “giving dry birth to a porcupine,” he quipped.

Former U.S. Sen. Alan Simpson, a political legend whose quick wit bridged partisan gaps in the years before today’s political acrimony, has died. He was 93. Simpson died early Friday after struggling to recover from a broken hip in December,