Former U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl died Wednesday night at 84 after battling a neurological disorder that forced him from public life late last year.
Gordon James, a communications professional and longtime friend of the Kyl family, confirmed the death to the outlet. Kyl, 84, had announced in December 2025 that he been diagnosed with dementia and withdrew from public life entirely.
Kyl spent nearly three decades in Congress across both chambers, watching the Republican Party transform dramatically from Ronald Reagan’s presidency through Donald Trump’s first term. He rose to minority whip during his final full Senate term before retiring from politics in 2013 and becoming a lobbyist. His brief return to Capitol Hill came in 2018, when former Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey appointed him to fill the vacancy left by the death of U.S. Sen. John McCain.
Ducey, who considered Kyl a mentor, described the former senator in a February 2025 interview as a true statesman and a “workhorse” among Washington’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.”
Ducey also called Kyl a “giant” in the Senate, further describing him as serious, engaging, forthright and thoughtful. His biggest impacts, Ducey said, came from keeping the Republican caucus united against Obamacare and his staunch support of Israel.
Kyl’s work ethic drew praise from Republican U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who later served as majority leader. In a 2012 floor speech, McConnell called Kyl’s work ethic “legendary” and noted he had labored mostly behind the scenes for 15 years to advance a major tribal water settlement.
The 2004 legislation Kyl authored provided one of the largest tribal water rights settlements in history, ending a decades-long battle to give the Gila River Indian Community enough water to fill nearly 313,500 Olympic-sized swimming pools annually.
“It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, but I was in a position to be the catalyst,” Kyl told the Phoenix New Times in a 2006 interview. “There wasn’t anybody else who could do that water deal. And it had to be done.”
Arizona State University’s Kyl Center for Water Policy bears his name. Its director, Sarah Porter, said Kyl was generous with his time and an effective member of the state’s congressional delegation who took a practical approach to water policy.
“He’s always sort of cared about the public good and been able to think about, ‘What will this mean for the generations to come?'” Porter said, adding that Kyl remained “quite a dynamo” until recent years, as his wife battled health problems.
Before his congressional career, Kyl was a key participant in shaping Arizona’s 1980 groundwater code as a lawyer representing a large water utility. The first-of-its-kind code created a regulatory framework for managing groundwater in the drought-stricken state, largely centering on population centers including Phoenix and Tucson.
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. House. At 18, he headed southwest to attend the University of Arizona, where he met his wife, Caryll, and earned a law degree. He was first elected to the House in 1987, beginning four terms there before moving to the Senate.
As a lobbyist, Kyl helped guide the confirmation of Trump-picked Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. When he returned to Congress in 2018, he was known as Kavanaugh’s chief Sherpa — an informal but widely known term for a nominee’s guide through the political tundra in the Senate. 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 also backed legislation to authorize construction of a fence stretching hundreds of miles along the U.S.-Mexico border, though he later joined with Democrats to support a bill that would provide a path to citizenship and temporary guest-worker status for those in the U.S. Without authorization. The proposal ultimately failed.
“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.
In his statement disclosing his dementia diagnosis, Kyl harkened back to Reagan’s words 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.”