Nancy Kassebaum, a three‑term moderate Republican from Kansas and the first woman to chair a major Senate standing committee, passed away on Friday in Manhattan, Kansas. She was 94 years old.
Her son William Kassebaum confirmed that she died at a hospice care facility.
From 1995 to 1997, as chair of the Committee on Labor and Human Resources—now the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions—Senator Kassebaum helped pass legislation guaranteeing health‑insurance portability for workers who change jobs. She collaborated with Democratic co‑sponsor Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts to overcome months of opposition from Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, a close friend and fellow Kansan Republican.
Earlier, she contributed to Congress’s override of President Ronald Reagan’s veto of a 1986 bill imposing economic sanctions on South Africa’s apartheid regime. As chair of the African affairs subcommittee, she met with Reagan, urging him to confront the regime: “There is one person they might listen to, and that is President Reagan.” He warned instead that ending apartheid could invite Marxist tyranny. Kassebaum joined 77 other senators in overriding his veto.
During her Senate tenure from 1978 to 1997, the American Conservative Union rated her voting record at 56 %, while Americans for Democratic Action gave her a score of 37 %. She tended to vote conservatively on economic matters, yet from her first campaign she advocated for abortion rights, remarking in a debate, “Abortions are seldom the right moral choice, but I believe a choice should exist.”
In a 2013 interview for this obituary, she noted that her stance on abortion and her support for an assault‑weapons ban would make election in today’s Kansas unlikely: “I couldn’t get elected today.” She had been a critic of President Trump since the 2016 race and endorsed Kamala Harris against him in 2024. In recent years she also backed Democratic candidates for Kansas governor and Senate.
She won her three terms comfortably and was considered a strong favorite for re‑election in 1996. Yet, like many moderates then and now, she grew weary of the capital’s partisan battles.
In December 1995, after announcing her retirement, she told The New York Times, “The higher the decibel level gets, the more it feels like a boxing match. It’s nothing like when I first arrived.”
A year later, in December 1996, just before her final term concluded, she married former Senator Howard H. Baker Jr. of Tennessee, a prominent Republican who had served as majority leader and whose first wife had died of cancer in 1993. They split their time between his home in Huntsville, Tennessee, and her ranch near Burdick, Kansas—a place she described in 2013 as so tranquil that “at night the only thing I hear is the coyotes.” Baker passed away in 2014 at age 88.
Located on the edge of the Flint Hills, Burdick was the site of two accomplishments she cherished most: the creation of the 10,894‑acre Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve and legislation that limited liability for general‑aviation aircraft manufacturers, a vital Kansas industry.
Nancy Josephine Landon was born in Topeka, Kansas, on July 29 1932. Her father, Alfred Mossman Landon—known as Alf—was an oil executive seeking his first of two terms as a progressive Republican governor. Her mother, Theo (Cobb) Landon, was a pianist and harpist.
She attended local public schools, earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Kansas in 1954, and received a master’s in diplomatic history from the University of Michigan in 1956—the year she married John Philip Kassebaum, known as Phil, a law student there. The couple settled in Maize, Kansas, outside Wichita, and raised four children.
Politics permeated the Landon household during her upbringing, especially after her father became the Republican nominee against President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1936. (He carried only Maine and Vermont, securing eight electoral votes.) Frequented by prominent Republicans, he remained a respected figure in Kansas until his death at age 100 in 1987.
Before her 1978 Senate bid, her political résumé was modest: she had served on the local school board and worked a year as a constituent‑services aide for Senator James Pearson.
After Senator James Pearson announced his sudden retirement, she launched into a crowded Republican primary against eight rivals. At that point she and her husband were separated—they divorced in 1979—and she campaigned under the name Nancy Landon Kassebaum.
She did not shy away from acknowledging the advantage of her family name. “It’s been said I’m riding on my father’s coattails,” she admitted while campaigning, “but I can’t think of a better legacy to run on.”
She captured the primary with just over 30 % of the vote, then beat Democratic challenger Bill Roy in the general election with 54 %. She went on to win re‑election in 1984 and 1990, each time securing about three‑quarters of the vote.
Besides her son William, she is survived by her other son, John Jr.; seven grandchildren; and two great‑grandchildren.
As the sole woman in the Senate upon her initial election, she bristled at remarks about her attire and appearance—comments rarely aimed at her male peers. She sometimes felt her colleagues did not take her seriously, a dynamic she had also encountered at home.
In a 2013 recollection, she said her father had been “adamantly opposed” to her 1978 Senate run, explaining, “I think he doubted I could win and simply couldn’t picture a woman in the Senate—let alone his own daughter.”
In 1995 she remarked that she would not miss the frequent question, “What’s it like to be a woman in the Senate?” By that point eight women served in the chamber, prompting her to observe, “It’s no longer a big deal.”
