A Trailblazing Senator Passes
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, has died. She was 94.
Her son, Bill Kassebaum, told CBS News that she died Friday. He also told The Associated Press that she died of natural causes. Bill Kassebaum described his mother as "an independent voice that was willing to do what was right for Kansas and the country," which he said sometimes meant going against her party. He added, "She was also willing to talk to her constituents, even when they didn't agree, and openly discuss her votes and stances."
From Kansas Roots to the Senate
Born on July 29, 1932, Kassebaum Baker was the daughter of Gov. Alf Landon, the unsuccessful 1936 Republican nominee for president. She earned a political science degree from the University of Kansas and a master's degree in diplomatic history from the University of Michigan in the mid-1950s. Before entering politics, she worked as a radio-station executive, spent a year in the 1970s on the staff of Kansas Sen. James Pearson, and served on the school board in the Wichita suburb of Maize.
In 1978, running as Nancy Landon Kassebaum, she spent less than $12,000 in the first quarter of her campaign and won the GOP nomination with less than 31 percent of the vote. She then won the November election with almost 54 percent of the vote against former two-term Democratic congressman Bill Roy. Her victory brought her immediate national attention and made her the first woman elected to the Senate without following a spouse into office.
During her three terms, Kassebaum Baker built a reputation for her modest demeanor, which endeared her to voters of all political stripes. She shared the moderate, progressive Republican politics of her father and could work with Senate colleagues of all political philosophies. A 1996 health insurance law bore her name, along with that of liberal Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy.
A Record of Independence
Kassebaum Baker was part of a dwindling bloc of moderate-to-liberal Republicans. She supported, for example, a ban on assault weapons championed by President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, and said that vote inspired the angriest mail of her career. She also refused to endorse an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to require a balanced budget, saying, "We should be wary of the seemingly simple solution."
Her re-election victories were decisive: she won in 1984 with 76 percent of the vote and in 1990 with 74 percent. When she announced her retirement, she was among eight women senators and the only one to chair a Senate committee, the Labor and Human Resources panel.
In 1996, when she decided not to seek re-election, she said she would return to a ranch and 90-year-old farmhouse in Kansas' scenic Flint Hills and babysit her grandchildren. She had seven grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. When there was brief talk of naming a new highway in Topeka after her, she said, "Oh, goodness. Absolutely not — no."
Later Life and Legacy
Kassebaum Baker married former Sen. Howard Baker, a Tennessee Republican, in 1996. They had kept their romance low-key, and speculation about a possible marriage didn't emerge until mid-1996, in a Washington Post story. Their wedding was the first time a man and a woman who had both served in the Senate had wed. Howard Baker served from 1967 to 1985 and became President Ronald Reagan's chief of staff. His first wife, Joy, died in 1993 after a long battle with cancer. Howard Baker died in 2014.
After leaving the Senate, Kassebaum Baker continued in public service. She served on a bipartisan commission on campaign finance reform under Clinton and on a British commission in Africa in 2004-05. In 2001, President George W. Bush named Howard Baker ambassador to Japan.
In her later years, Kassebaum Baker broke with the Republican Party in notable ways. She endorsed Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly for Kansas governor in both 2022 and 2022, even though Kelly's 2022 GOP opponent, then Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt, had worked on her Senate staff. In 2021, she declared that President Donald Trump should be impeached after Trump supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol.
Her son Bill Kassebaum served a term in the Kansas House. She had four children with her first husband, Phil Kassebaum, and the marriage ended in divorce in 1979. Her father, Alf Landon, died at age 100 in 1987.