'Workhorse' Former Senator Dies at 84

Former US Sen. Jon Kyl, a longtime Republican lawmaker from Arizona who shaped landmark water policies in the US West and guided the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, has died. He was 84. Kyl died Wednesday night from a neurological disorder, said Gordon James, a longtime family friend. Kyl withdrew from public life in December 2025 after announcing he had been diagnosed with dementia.

• Kyl spent almost three decades in Congress, serving in both chambers, and watched his party undergo a drastic transformation, with his career spanning Ronald Reagan's presidency to President Trump's first term, the AP reports. He was elected to the House in 1986 and the Senate in 1994.
• In 2000, Kyl was considered as a running mate for George W. Bush, the Arizona Republic reports. The search was overseen by Kyl's friend Dick Cheney, who ended up choosing himself. "I'd have been very happy with Jon Kyl as the president of the United States," Cheney said in 2012. "I think he was that good."

Former Republican Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, who considered Kyl a mentor, described the former senator in a February 2025 interview with the AP as a true statesman and a "workhorse" among Washington, DC's "showhorses." Kyl rose to a leadership position during his last full term in the Senate, when his Republican colleagues selected him as minority whip. After retiring from politics in 2013 and becoming a lobbyist, Kyl returned to Congress briefly in 2018, when Ducey appointed him to fill the vacancy left by the late Sen. John McCain. His appointment drew high praise from Trump, who said he was looking forward to working with "the extraordinary senator." Kyl stayed for less than four months before rejoining lobbying firm Covington and Burling.

Kyl was born in Oakland, Nebraska, on April 25, 1942, and grew up in a rural farming district in Iowa that his father represented in the US House. At 18, he headed southwest to attend the University of Arizona, where he met his wife, Caryll, and earned a law degree. They married in 1964 and had two children.

• Before was elected to the House, Kyl was a key participant in shaping Arizona's 1980 groundwater code as a lawyer representing a large water utility. In 2004, Kyl authored legislation that provided one of the largest tribal water rights settlements, which, after a decades-long battle, gave the Gila River Indian Community enough water to fill nearly 313,500 Olympic-sized swimming pools. Arizona State University's Kyl Center for Water Policy takes its name from him.
• As a lobbyist, Kyl helped guide the confirmation of Trump-picked U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. When Kyl returned to the halls of Congress in 2018, he was known as Kavanaugh's chief Sherpa—an informal term for a nominee's guide to the political tundra in the Senate.
• In a statement disclosing his dementia diagnosis, Kyl harkened back to the words of Reagan, when the former president revealed his own Alzheimer's diagnosis and said he was starting a journey that would lead him to the end of his life. Kyl said he shared Reagan's confidence for Arizona and the nation's future, and that despite his diagnosis, he was a "very fortunate man."