Former Kansas Sen. Nancy Kassebaum Baker dies at 94

TOPEKA, Kan. - Former Republican Sen. Nancy Kassebaum Baker of Kansas died Friday at 94 of natural causes, her son Bill Kassebaum told the Associated Press.

She was the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate without following a spouse who had already served in Congress. She won in 1978, served three terms, and left office in January 1997 after 18 years. For her first two years she was the only woman in the Senate.

Kassebaum Baker was the daughter of Alf Landon, the Kansas governor who lost the 1936 presidential race as the Republican nominee. She built a reputation as a moderate willing to work across party lines. A 1996 health insurance law that expanded portability of coverage carried her name with Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts. She also chaired the Labor and Human Resources Committee.

Kansas voters stuck with her. She won reelection with about 76 percent in 1984 and about 74 percent in 1990. Before the Senate she served on a local school board. After leaving Congress she stayed in public life, including work on a bipartisan campaign finance commission during the Clinton years.

In 1996 she married former Tennessee Sen. Howard Baker, marking the first marriage between a man and a woman who had both served in the Senate. Howard Baker later served as President Ronald Reagan's White House chief of staff and as U.S. ambassador to Japan under President George W. Bush. He died in 2014. She lived with him in Japan during that ambassadorship and later said she would miss the Kansas prairie.

Bill Kassebaum told the AP his mother loved Kansas and its people and stood up for what she thought was right even when that meant breaking with her party. Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly said the state lost part of its soul. The family planned a private memorial and asked for donations to the Capper Foundation and the Kansas 4-H Foundation.