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Nancy Josephine Kassebaum Baker (; born July 29, 1932) is an American retired politician from Kansas who served as a member of the United States Senate from 1978 to 1997. She is the daughter of Alf Landon, who was Governor of Kansas from 1933 to 1937 and the 1936 Republican nominee for president, and the widow of former U.S. senator and diplomat Howard Baker.
With her victory in the 1978 U.S. Senate election in Kansas, Kassebaum entered the national spotlight as the only woman in the U.S. Senate, and as the first woman to represent Kansas. She was also the first woman ever elected to a full term in the Senate without her husband having previously served in Congress.
In her three terms in the Senate, Kassebaum demonstrated a political independence that made her a key figure in building bi-partisan coalitions in foreign affairs and domestic policy. As chair of the Senate Subcommittee on African Affairs, she played a limited role in legislation to sanction the racist apartheid regime in South Africa. The legislation which was enacted in 1986, over a presidential veto, was drafted by Senators Lugar, Roth, McConnell, and Dole, although later in life, Kassebaum claimed credit for it. As chair of the Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources, she led the fight for major health care reforms that, for the first time, assured health insurance coverage for people changing jobs with pre-existing medical conditions.
She worked as vice president of Kassebaum Communications, a family-owned company that operated several radio stations. Kassebaum also served on the Maize School Board. In 1975, she and Philip were legally separated; their divorce became final in March 1979. Kassebaum worked in Washington, D.C., as a caseworker for Senator James B. Pearson of Kansas in 1975, but returned to Kansas the following year.
At the time that she entered the race, Kassebaum was legally separated from her husband, Philip, but not yet divorced. She chose to use the name Nancy Landon Kassebaum, to capitalize on her father's political reputation in the state." Nancy Landon Kassebaum Intends To Use Dad's Name", The Fort Scott Tribune (March 22, 1978), p. 4. She defeated eight other Republicans in the 1978 primary elections to replace retiring Republican James B. Pearson, and then defeated former Democratic representative William R. Roy (who narrowly lost a previous election bid to Kansas's junior senator, Bob Dole, in 1974) in the general election. For the rest of her political career, she was primarily known as Nancy Kassebaum." Salute To Senator: Her Retirement Came As No Surprise, But Sen. Nancy Kassebaum Still Will Be Missed By Kansans", Lawrence Journal-World (November 21, 1995). She was re-elected to her Senate seat in 1984 and 1990, but did not seek re-election in 1996.
Although President Reagan condemned apartheid, he strongly opposed economic sanctions, despite growing pressure from Congress, including Kassebaum and senator Richard Lugar (R-IN), the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. To break the impasse, the two senators joined key Democrats in supporting targeted sanctions against the South African government, setting specific anti-apartheid goals and conditions, including a demand that South Africa release African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela from prison.
The bi-partisan legislation, the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986, passed the House and Senate by overwhelming margins, but was then vetoed by President Reagan, forcing Kassebaum and Lugar into a major battle against the president and leadership of their own party. On September 29, 1986, the House voted 315-to-84 to override Reagan's veto. The Senate followed suit three days later, and, on a 78-to-21 vote, passed the bi-partisan sanctions bill into law.
In March 1982, Kassebaum headed a U.S. delegation to observe national elections in El Salvador, where the U.S.-backed military junta was battling leftist guerrillas, while being unable to control human rights abuses by government forces and far-right paramilitary groups. The heavy turnout on Election Day convinced Kassebaum that the leftists lacked popular support.
Kassebaum became a key member of bi-partisan efforts to support the Salvadoran government with economic and military aid, while pressuring the government on human rights, land reforms, and more effective steps to prevent a guerrilla victory. She repeatedly urged the Reagan administration to set a clear policy for a political solution to the civil war, while avoiding deeper U.S. military involvement in the region.
In a year of heated debate, Kassebaum found herself at times opposing amendments from fellow Republicans, including her Kansas colleague, Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, and pressuring Kennedy and Democrats to reach compromises. As a result, House and Senate conferees ultimately settled on a final version of the legislation, known as the Kassebaum-Kennedy Act, or the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. The legislation passed overwhelmingly in both houses, and was signed into law by President Clinton, on August 21, 1996.
In her last months in the Senate, Kassebaum also won passage of a new law preserving a beautiful tract of Kansas tallgrass prairie in the national park system. After more than 50 years of controversy, the idea of a Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve became a reality just two months before Kassebaum left office. The new preserve covers 10,876 acres in the heart of the Flint Hills, with its native limestone house, barn and school. Under Kassebaum's bill, signed into law by President Clinton, the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve is the only NPS unit dedicated to preserving and providing public access to untamed tallgrass prairie that once covered more than 400,000 square miles of the American heartland.
Kassebaum voted for the successful Supreme Court nominations of Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy, David H. Souter, Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Stephen G. Breyer. She voted for the nomination of Robert Bork, which was rejected by the Senate. Kassebaum later expressed regret for voting to confirm Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court of the United States in 1991, expressing disappointment in his performance. The year after the hearings, she noted, "I was never once asked by anyone at the White House or by any of my colleagues about how I reacted to Anita Hill's public allegations of sexual harassment, or how I thought the allegations should be handled."Reported in Wendy Kaminer, "Crashing the Locker Room", The Atlantic (July 1992), Vol, 270, p. 59-60.
Kassebaum voted against a proposed constitutional amendment that would have allowed Congress and the states to ban or restrict abortions.
Kassebaum voted in favor of the bill establishing Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a federal holiday, and the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1987 (as well as to override President Reagan's veto).
Prior to completing her third term, on December 7, 1996, Kassebaum married former U.S. Senator Howard Baker of Tennessee, who retired from the U.S. Senate after serving three terms in 1985, and included terms as both majority and minority leader.
After leaving the Senate, Kassebaum served on the Board of Trustees for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Kaiser Family Foundation. She was Chairman of the National Advisory Committee on Rural Health to the Secretary of Health and Human Services, the George C. Marshall Foundation and the American-Turkish Council. Senator Kassebaum also served on the Board of Directors of the National Committee on US-China Relations, the African Law Institute Council-ABA, and the International Medical Corps.
Kassebaum remained active on issues such as campaign finance reform. She served on the Americans for Campaign Reform Advisory Committee, and in 1997 President Clinton asked Kassebaum and former Vice President Walter Mondale “to assist in the cause of bipartisan campaign finance reform.” Their work resulted in recommendations to revamp campaign finance laws that was delivered to Congress in October.
In 2000, Kassebaum was appointed as Co-Chair of The Presidential Appointee Initiative Advisory Board, a Brookings Institution commission that delivered reform recommendations to the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee. From 2001 to 2005, Senator Baker served as the United States Ambassador to Japan and Kassebaum accompanied him to Japan, living in Tokyo during this time. Kassebaum was recognized for her work with Baker in Japan, including organizing a regional conference in Tokyo to combat human trafficking in Asia in 2004.
Kassebaum is an Advisory Board member for the Partnership for a Secure America, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to recreating the bipartisan center in American national security and foreign policy. She is also a member of the ReFormers Caucus of Issue One.
She is a noted critic of President Donald Trump. In 2018, she, alongside other incumbent and former Republican politicians, endorsed Laura Kelly, the Democratic candidate and eventual victor, in the 2018 Kansas gubernatorial election. Hunter Woodall, "GOP stalwart Nancy Kassebaum picks Democrat Laura Kelly over Kris Kobach," Kansas City Star, September 2018. She also endorsed Kelly's successful reelection in 2022. Kassebaum also endorsed Republican-turned-Democrat Barbara Bollier for the 2020 Senate election in Kansas over her Republican opponent Roger Marshall. In 2014, Kassebaum expressed support for same-sex marriage.Republicans From the West Give Support for Gay Marriage; Erik Eckholm, The New York Times, March 3, 2014 In 2024, she endorsed Kamala Harris for president.
Kassebaum was honored by the Native Sons and Daughters of Kansas as Distinguished Kansas in 1978, and she received it Citation for Distinguished Statesmanship in 2000.
In 1985, Kassebaum received the Distinguished Service Citation from her alma mater, University of Kansas.
In 1996, she was awarded American Library Association Honorary Membership.
In January 2025 Kassebaum was one of twenty recipients of the Presidential Citizens Medal. President Biden cited her bipartisan work in the United States Senate, especially on health care reform.
She then married former U.S. Senator and Diplomat Howard Baker of Tennessee on December 7, 1996. After leaving Tokyo in 2005 at the end of his appointment as U.S. Ambassador to Japan, they split time between his home in Huntsville, Tennessee, and her home in Burdick, Kansas. Baker died on June 26, 2014.
Her son, William Kassebaum, is a former member of the Kansas House of Representatives. Her other son, filmmaker Richard Kassebaum, died of a brain tumor August 27, 2008, at the age of 47. Her daughter, Dr. Linda Johnson, died of supranuclear palsy in 2020 at the age of 61.
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