Trailblazing U.S. Senator Passes Away At 94

Nancy Landon Kassebaum Baker, a former United States senator from Kansas, passed away on Friday at the age of 94. She died of natural causes, according to her son, Bill Kassebaum.

“Born on July 29, 1932, in Topeka, Kansas, for 94 years she relished the support of family and friends from all over the world. Her years were filled with remarkable successes, challenges, and above all, a deep love for Kansas,” the late senator’s family announced in a statement.

“She loved Kansas. She loved people from Kansas and representing Kansas for 18 years in the U.S. Senate. She was an independent-minded Republican who was willing to stand up for what she thought was right, even if that meant going against the party,” Bill Kassebaum said in a separate statement to the Associated Press.

CNN/AP: Nancy Kassebaum Baker, a Kansas governor’s daughter who became the first woman elected to the US Senate without following a spouse into office, has died.

She was 94.

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Born Nancy Josephine Landon, she was the daughter of Alfred M. “Alf” Landon, who served as governor of Kansas from 1933 to 1937 and was the Republican nominee for president in 1936.

In 1955 she married John Philip Kassebaum. The couple settled in Maize, Kansas, where they raised four children. She worked as vice president of Kassebaum Communications, a family-owned company that operated radio stations, and served on the Maize school board. The couple separated in 1975 and divorced in 1979. In the mid-1970s she worked briefly as a caseworker for Senator James B. Pearson of Kansas.

In 1978 she sought the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Pearson. Running as Nancy Landon Kassebaum, she won a nine-candidate primary with less than 31 percent of the vote and then defeated Democratic former congressman Bill Roy in the general election with nearly 54 percent of the vote.

She was sworn in on December 23, 1978, and served until January 3, 1997. She won re-election in 1984 with 76 percent of the vote and in 1990 with 74 percent.

Her election made history as she became the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate without following a spouse into office. She was also the first woman to represent Kansas in the Senate and, for her first two years in office, the only woman serving in that body. She later noted that she was elected to serve as a senator, not solely as a woman senator.

During her three terms, Kassebaum Baker served on committees including Labor and Human Resources, which she chaired from 1995 to 1997, and the Foreign Relations Committee’s Subcommittee on African Affairs. She co-sponsored the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 with Senator Edward Kennedy, which addressed coverage for individuals changing jobs who had pre-existing conditions.

The late senator also supported legislation imposing sanctions on South Africa over apartheid, which were enacted in 1986 over a presidential veto. She was known for working across party lines on issues including welfare reform, campaign finance, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

In December 1996 she married former Tennessee Senator Howard H. Baker Jr. After leaving the Senate she accompanied him during his service as U.S. ambassador to Japan from 2001 to 2005. Following his death in 2014, she returned to Kansas and resided in a stone house on a ranch in the Flint Hills near Burdick.

A private memorial service is planned for a later date. The family has requested that memorial contributions be directed to the Capper Foundation or the Kansas 4-H Foundation.