Nancy Kassebaum Baker, Trailblazing Kansas Senator, Dies at 94

Nancy Kassebaum Baker, a Kansas governor’s daughter who became the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate without following a spouse into office, died Friday at her home in Topeka. She was 94.

Kassebaum Baker died of natural causes, her son Bill Kassebaum told The Associated Press. “She loved Kansas. She loved people from Kansas and representing Kansas for 18 years in the U.S. Senate,” he said. “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.” He told CBS News his mother was “an independent voice that was willing to do what was right for Kansas and the country,” adding that she remained willing to openly discuss her votes with constituents even when they disagreed with her.

Elected to the Senate in 1978, Kassebaum Baker served three terms before retiring in 1997, becoming a prominent moderate voice in a Republican Party she was frequently willing to break with. She could work with colleagues across the political spectrum, and a landmark 1996 health insurance law bore her name alongside that of liberal Massachusetts Democrat Ted Kennedy.

An Unlikely Path to the Senate

Kassebaum Baker was born July 29, 1932, in Topeka, the daughter of Alf Landon, who served as Kansas governor from 1933 to 1937 and was the Republican Party’s unsuccessful 1936 presidential nominee. She earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Kansas and a master’s in diplomatic history from the University of Michigan, and her early political experience was limited to serving on the school board in the small town of Maize, Kansas.

Pundits at the time estimated a competitive Senate campaign would require roughly $1 million, a large sum for Kansas politics. In the first quarter of 1978, Kassebaum Baker spent less than $12,000 and later said she considered herself “at the bottom of the totem pole.” She won the crowded nine-candidate Republican primary with less than 31% of the vote, then defeated former two-term Democratic Congressman Bill Roy with nearly 54% support in the general election, taking the seat of retiring Republican Sen. James Pearson.

Her moderate instincts surfaced almost immediately. Within months of taking office, she refused to endorse a proposed constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget, saying, “We should be wary of the seemingly simple solution.” She went on to win reelection in 1984 and 1990 by margins exceeding 70%.

A Legislative Legacy Built on Bipartisanship

During her three terms, Kassebaum Baker worked on reducing the federal budget deficit, international arms control, and sanctions against apartheid-era South Africa, and she supported reforming liability laws related to general aviation, according to the Senate Historical Office. She chaired the Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources during her final term, becoming only the second woman to chair a standing Senate committee.

Her most enduring legislative achievement came through her partnership with Kennedy on the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, commonly known today as HIPAA, which protected workers’ ability to maintain health coverage when changing or losing jobs. She also broke with many Senate Republicans by supporting international family planning funding and abortion rights domestically, a stance that drew criticism from conservative Christian Republicans in Kansas, according to the University of Nebraska’s Plains Humanities Alliance encyclopedia.

Former Kansas Sen. Bob Dole, who died in 2021, helped Kassebaum Baker’s initial candidacy by persuading fellow Republicans she would be a capable senator. “Nancy has a way about her that she gets along with everyone,” Dole told the Wichita Eagle in 2015. “She has never tried to be a moderate or a conservative.”

Life After the Senate

Kassebaum Baker married former Tennessee Republican Sen. Howard Baker in 1996, shortly before leaving office, the first marriage between two people who had each served in the U.S. Senate. Howard Baker, who served as White House chief of staff under President Ronald Reagan and later as U.S. ambassador to Japan, died in 2014.

After retiring from the Senate, Kassebaum Baker continued public service, including a role on a bipartisan campaign finance reform commission during the Clinton administration. In later years she increasingly diverged from the Republican Party’s direction and endorsed Democratic candidates in several Kansas races, including Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly, according to Fox News. In January, President Joe Biden awarded her the Presidential Citizens Medal, citing her willingness to “stand up for what she believed in even if it meant standing alone” and to “reach across the aisle.”

The Kassebaum family said in a statement that a private memorial service will be held at a later date, and requested donations be made to the Kansas 4-H Foundation or the Capper Foundation in lieu of flowers.

She is survived by her four children, including sons William and Richard Kassebaum.