Nancy Kassebaum Baker, Former U.S. Senator From Kansas, Dies At 94

Nancy Kassebaum Baker, who became the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate without following a husband into the seat, died Friday of natural causes at 94. She represented Kansas for three terms starting in 1978 and chaired the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee before retiring in 1997.

A moderate Republican in the mold of her father, unsuccessful 1936 GOP presidential nominee Alf Landon, she co-authored a 1996 health insurance law with liberal Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy and supported an assault weapons ban under President Clinton. She married former Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker in 1996; he died in 2014.

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