Politics
Former Kansas senator Nancy Kassebaum Baker dies at 94
The trailblazing moderate Republican served three terms in the U.S. Senate and became known for bipartisan legislative work.
The short version
- Nancy Kassebaum Baker, who represented Kansas in the U.S. Senate for 18 years, died of natural causes at age 94 on Friday.
- She was the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate without following a spouse into office.
- Known as a moderate Republican, she frequently reached across party lines, co-authoring major 1996 health insurance legislation and later endorsing select Democrats and backing Donald Trump's 2021 impeachment.
Key facts
- Nancy Kassebaum Baker died of natural causes at age 94 on Friday, according to her son, Bill Kassebaum.[ABC News · Fox News]
- First elected in 1978, Kassebaum Baker served three terms in the U.S. Senate from 1978 to 1997 and was the first woman elected to the body without following a spouse into Congress.[ABC News · Fox News]
- She was the daughter of Alf Landon, a former Kansas governor and the 1936 Republican presidential nominee.[ABC News · Fox News]
- During her tenure, she chaired the Senate Labor and Human Resources panel and partnered with Democratic Senator Ted Kennedy to sponsor a 1996 health insurance law.[ABC News · Fox News]
- In 1996, she married former Republican Senator Howard Baker of Tennessee, marking the first marriage between two former U.S. senators.[ABC News · Fox News]
- In her post-Senate years, she frequently broke with the Republican Party, endorsing Democratic Kansas Governor Laura Kelly and calling for Donald Trump's impeachment after the January 6 Capitol attack.[ABC News · Fox News]