NewzJon Kyl, a longtime Republican lawmaker from Arizona who shaped landmark water policies in the U.S. 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 communications professional who is a longtime friend of the Kyl family.
Kyl had withdrawn from public life in December 2025 after announcing he had been diagnosed with dementia.Kyl spent almost three decades in Congress, serving in both chambers,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 Donald Trump’s first term.Former Republican Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, who considered Kyl a mentor, described the former senator in a February 2025 interview with The Associated Press as a true statesman and a “workhorse” among Washington, D.C.’s “showhorses.”“If you saw him on the plane, he was sitting in the aisle, in coach, and he was reading,” Ducey said. “And he was reading potential bills or Senate business.”Kyl returns briefly to Senate to fill McCain seatKyl 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 U.S. 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.“At the federal level, and I regret to say that this is the case, but probably a lot of my better achievements were in preventing bad things from happening (rather) than forcing good things to happen,” Kyl said in a 2012 conversation with former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.Lawyer with expertise in water gets electedKyl 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 U.S.
At 18, he headed southwest to attend the University of Arizona, where he met his wife, Caryll, and earned a law degree.Before being elected for the first of his four terms in the House in 1987, Kyl was a key participant in shaping Arizona’s … Kyl died Wednesday night from a neurological disorder, said Gordon James, a communications professional who is longtime friends with the Kyl family. 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 Donald Trump’s first term.
“And he was reading potential bills or Senate business.” Kyl rose to a leadership position during his last full term in the Senate, when his Republican colleagues selected him as minority whip. 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. “At the federal level, and I regret to say that this is the case, but probably a lot of my better achievements were in preventing bad things from happening (rather) than forcing good things to happen,” Kyl said in a 2012 conversation with former U.S.
Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. 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 U.S. Before being elected for the first of his four terms in the House in 1987, Kyl was a key participant in shaping Arizona’s 1980 groundwater code as a lawyer representing a large water utility.
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