Nancy Baker
Nancy Josephine Landon Kassebaum Baker (born July 29, 1932) is the second wife of U.S. Sen. Howard H. Baker Jr. of Huntsville, and was herself a member of the U.S. Senate from Kansas.
Early Life
Born in Topeka, Kan. on July 29, 1932, Nancy Josephine Landon was the daughter of Alf Landon and Theo Cobb. Her father served as governor of Kansas from 1933 to 1937, and was the 1936 Republican nominee for president. He lost the race to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, receiving just eight electoral votes to Roosevelt’s 523.
Nancy attended Topeka High School and graduated in 1950. She graduated from the University of Kansas in 1954, where she was a member of the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority. While at the university, she met her first husband, John Philip Kassebaum, an attorney from Kansas City, Mo. They married in 1956 and settled in Maize, Kan., where they had four children. That same year, Nancy received a master’s degree in diplomatic history from the University of Michigan.
The Kassebaums owned several radio stations under the name Kassebaum Communications, of which Nancy was vice president. She also served on the Maize School Board.
Nancy and John separated in 1975 and were divorced in 1979.
Political Career
Nancy Kassebaum worked in Washington, D.C. as a caseworker for Sen. James B. Pearson of Kansas for a short time in the mid 1970s. When Pearson announced his retirement in 1977, Kassebaum announced her candidacy in the Republican primary in a bid to replace him. She defeated eight other Republicans to win the nomination, then defeated former U.S. Rep. William R. Roy in the general election. Roy, a Democrat, had narrowly lost to Bob Dole in the 1974 election for the U.S. Senate.
Kassebaum was re-elected in 1984 and again in 1990. She did not seek re-election to a fourth term in 1996.
Although she was a Republican, Kassebaum leaned left on most social issues, while maintaining a conservative stance on spending and government mandates. Her signature legislation was the Kennedy-Kassebaum Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which she co-sponsored with U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy, a Democrat from Massachusetts.
Kassebaum served as chair of the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on African Affairs. She supported anti-apartheid measures against South Africa. She pressured President Ronald Reagan to consider economic sanctions against South Africa, which Reagan resisted. She was instrumental in convincing Congress to pass the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986, which included a demand that South Africa release African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela from prison, where he had served a life sentence since 1962 after being convicted of conspiring to overthrow the state. Reagan vetoed the legislation, but Congress overrode the veto by an overwhelming margin.
Later, Kassebaum chaired the U.S. Senate Labor Committee, which is where she championed the health insurance reform legislation with Kennedy. The bill focused on helping 25 million American workers get and keep health insurance regardless of pre-existing conditions or a change of employment. The legislation left Kassebaum at odds with her fellow Kansas Senator, Dole, at times, but ultimately passed and was signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1996.
Kassebaum’s final legislation, passed just weeks before she left office, preserved 10,876 acres in the heart of the Flint Hills, known as the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve. Today, it is the only National Park Service unit dedicated to preserving and providing public access to untamed tallgrass prairie, which once covered more than 400,000 square miles.
Kassebaum was mentioned as a possible running mate for President George H.W. Bush in the 1992 election if Vice President Dan Quayle was not on the ballot.
Marriage to Baker
Howard H. Baker, who had become the first Republican elected to the U.S. Senate from Tennessee since Reconstruction, served three terms in the Senate and rose to become the U.S. Senate Minority Leader in the late 1970s, then the U.S. Senate Majority Leader after Republicans captured the majority in the 1980 election. He was a candidate for president in the 1980 Republican primary, and had been mentioned as a possible running mate for President Gerald Ford in 1976. Baker retired from the Senate in 1985. He was considered a potential candidate for president again in 1988, but was tapped by President Reagan to serve as White House Chief of Staff, which ended his presidential ambitions.
Baker’s wife, Joy Dirksen, died of cancer on April 24, 1993. Baker and Kassebaum began dating at a later date.
A former aide, Pat Butler, told it like this to the L.A. Times: “He said he had questioned some of his Senate colleagues and others who were close to him and fairly close to Sen. Kassebaum, just to know more about her before making his first move. Having done his homework, he proceeded in his usual way, which was in some respects as a 70-year-old teenager.”
The couple’s relationship became public in October 1996, after Kassebaum had announced she was retiring from the Senate at the conclusion of her term. Ironically, the secret was told by Sen. Dole. The Kansas Senator was the Republican nominee for president and was running against President Bill Clinton, who was seeking re-election. At a campaign rally with Baker in Knoxville the day before the election, Dole accidentally said that Baker and Kassebaum planned to marry.
Kassebaum was forced to make a statement, telling the Associated Press, “This is harder than announcing how I was going to get out of the Senate.” (Clinton defeated Dole in Tennessee the following day.)
Baker and Kassebaum were married on Dec. 7, 1996. They spent several years in Japan after Baker was appointed U.S. Ambassador to Japan by President George W. Bush in 2001. After returning stateside, they split time between Baker’s home in Huntsville and Kassebaum’s home in Kansas.
Kassebaum was by Baker’s side when he died on June 26, 2014, from the effects of a stroke. Following his funeral, she left Huntsville and returned to Kansas permanently.