Kassebaum-Baker, Nancy Landon

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Nancy Landon Kassebaum-Baker (kăs´əbôm´, –boum´), 1932–, U.S. senator from Kansas (1979–97), b. Topeka, Kans. A Republican and the daughter of Kansas governor Alfred Mossman (Alf) Landon, she was the first woman who had not entered politics as the widow of a congressman to be elected to the Senate. Kassebaum was an early proponent of term limits, supported abortion rights and gun control, and became chairwoman of the Labor and Human Resources Committee in 1995. She was married to Howard Baker from 1996 until his death in 2014.

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