Nancy Kassebaum

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Nancy Kassebaum  link C-SPAN NNDB Sourcewatch (Politician)
Born	Nancy Landon July 29, 1932 Topeka, Kansas, U.S.
Nationality	US
Alma mater	University of Kansas, University of Michigan
Parents	Alf Landon
Children	Bill, Richard
Spouses	Philip Kassebaum, Howard Baker
Party	Republican
Mooted by Time Magazine as possible running mate for George H.W. Bush in 1992.

Nancy Landon Kassebaum Baker was an American politician. In 1991, Kassebaum was mentioned by Time magazine as a possible running mate for President George H.W. Bush if Vice President Dan Quayle was not the Republican vice-presidential candidate in the 1992 U.S. presidential election.

She represented the State of Kansas in 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 Senator and diplomat Howard Baker. She was the first woman ever elected to a full term in the Senate without her husband having previously served in Congress.

Background

Baker was born in Topeka, Kansas, the daughter of Kansas First Lady Theo (née Cobb) and Governor Alf Landon. She attended Topeka High School and graduated in 1950. She graduated from the University of Kansas in Lawrence in 1954, where she was a member of Kappa Alpha Theta. In 1956, she received a master's degree in diplomatic history from the University of Michigan, where she met her first husband, Philip Kassebaum. They married in 1956. They settled in Maize, Kansas, where they raised four children.

She worked as vice president of Kassebaum Communications, a family-owned company that operated several radio stations. Kassebaum was also on the Maize School Board. In 1975, Kassebaum and her husband were legally separated; their divorce became final in 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.

Tenure

Kassebaum was a moderate-to-liberal Republican who is known for her health care legislation, known as the Kennedy-Kassebaum Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which was co-sponsored by Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy, a Democrat. She was also active in foreign policy. She expressed strong support of anti-apartheid measures against South Africa in the 1980s and traveled to Nicaragua as both an election observer and to encourage diplomatic resolutions to the conflict between the Contras and the Sandinistas.

Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen and Nancy Kassebaum answer a reporter's question during a joint press briefing in 1997.

Early in her career, she was tapped to serve as Temporary Chairman of the 1980 Republican National Convention. Presiding over the first two days of the convention, her appointment to that role was seen by many as a nod from the Reagan campaign to the moderate and liberal wings of the party.

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). Kassebaum voted in favor of the Robert Bork Supreme Court nomination. Kassebaum voted to confirm Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court in 1991, a vote she would later come to regret, 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."