Another towering figure from the Republican Party in the U.S. Senate has died.
Nancy Kassebaum Baker, the pioneering Kansas Republican who became the first woman elected to the Senate without previously having a husband serve in Congress, died Friday at the age of 94.
Her son, Bill Kassebaum, said she died of natural causes.
Kassebaum Baker represented Kansas for 18 years and developed a reputation as an independent-minded Republican who was willing to break with her party when she believed the circumstances demanded it.
“She loved Kansas. She loved people from Kansas and representing Kansas for 18 years in the U.S. Senate,” her son told The Associated Press.
“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 added.
Kassebaum Baker was elected to the Senate in 1978 and served three terms before retiring in early 1997.
Her victory was historic. While other women had previously served in the Senate, several had initially entered politics by succeeding their husbands. Kassebaum Baker won the office on her own political credentials, making her election an important milestone for women in American politics.
Politics was nevertheless part of her family heritage.
Her father, Alf Landon, served two terms as governor of Kansas and became the Republican presidential nominee in 1936, ultimately losing in a landslide to Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Kassebaum Baker inherited some of her father’s moderate Republican politics while developing a political identity distinctly her own.
During her Senate career, she became particularly known for her willingness to work across party lines.
One of her most significant legislative accomplishments came through a partnership with liberal Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy.
The two helped produce the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, which became widely known at the time as the Kennedy-Kassebaum Act and established major federal protections involving health insurance coverage and portability.
Kassebaum Baker’s stature within the Senate grew considerably during her three terms.
By the time she announced her retirement, eight women were serving in the chamber, but Kassebaum Baker was the only woman chairing a Senate committee. She headed the powerful Labor and Human Resources Committee.
She also represented a brand of moderate Republicanism that was becoming increasingly uncommon by the 1990s.
Kassebaum Baker occasionally broke with conservatives on major issues, including supporting the federal assault weapons ban championed by Democratic President Bill Clinton.
Those disagreements, however, did little to diminish her popularity back home.
Unlike some moderate Republicans who found themselves embroiled in bitter battles with their party’s conservative base, Kassebaum Baker remained broadly respected in heavily Republican Kansas.
Her political appeal was rooted partly in a low-key personality that rarely suggested she had become enamored with Washington or the power that accompanied her Senate position.
Kassebaum Baker was born July 29, 1932, while her father, an Independence, Kansas, oil businessman, was campaigning for the first of his two terms as governor.
She earned a political science degree from the University of Kansas before receiving a master’s degree in diplomatic history from the University of Michigan during the 1950s.
Her path to the Senate was hardly conventional.
Before launching her own political career, Kassebaum Baker worked as a radio station executive, spent approximately a year working for Kansas Sen. James Pearson and served on the school board in Maize, a Wichita suburb.
She had four children with her first husband, Phil Kassebaum. Their children included Bill Kassebaum, who later served a term in the Kansas House of Representatives. The couple divorced in 1979.
When Kassebaum Baker decided to run for Senate, she believed her differences from the typical political candidate might actually work to her advantage.
She later recalled believing that “a woman with a background different from a man might be appealing” to voters who had become tired of conventional politics.
Her campaign initially looked like a long shot.
Political observers estimated that mounting a serious statewide Senate campaign in Kansas could require as much as $1 million — a massive political war chest at the time.
Kassebaum Baker entered the race with nothing approaching that level of financial firepower. During the first quarter of 1978, her campaign spent less than $12,000, and she later remembered viewing herself as being “at the bottom of the totem pole.”
She won anyway.
Nearly two decades later, Kassebaum Baker left Washington as one of Kansas’ most recognizable political figures and one of the women who helped transform the makeup of the United States Senate.
In 1996, shortly before leaving office, she married another major figure in Republican Senate history, former Tennessee Sen. Howard Baker.
Howard Baker had served as Senate majority leader and later as White House chief of staff under President Ronald Reagan. He died in 2014.
Even after leaving elected office, Kassebaum Baker remained involved in public service and continued to command considerable respect in Kansas.
Her career ultimately spanned an era in which women went from being a rarity in the Senate to becoming an increasingly important force in national politics — a transformation Kassebaum Baker helped accelerate with an unlikely campaign that began with little money and few expectations in 1978.
