Former US Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, a ‘workhorse’ who shaped water policy, dies at 84

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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 communications professional who is longtime friends with 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 Kyl had withdrawn from public life in December 2025 after announcing he had been diagnosed with dementia.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 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, DC’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 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.

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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 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 US House. 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 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 the state’s population centers, including Phoenix and Tucson.

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 annually. Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who later served as majority leader, called Kyl’s work ethic “legendary” in a 2012 floor speech and said Kyl had labored mostly behind the scenes for 15 years to advance the settlement.

“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 takes its name from him. 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.

Ducey said Kyl was a “giant” in the Senate, further describing him as serious, engaging, forthright and thoughtful. His biggest impacts, Ducey said, came from the way he kept the Republican caucus together in opposition to Obamacare and his staunch support of Israel.

Kyl also backed legislation to authorize construction of a fence stretching hundreds of miles along the US-Mexico border. 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 country without authorization. The proposal ultimately failed.

As a lobbyist, Kyl helped guide the confirmation of Trump-picked Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh. When Kyl returned to the halls of Congress in 2018, he was known as Kavanaugh’s chief sherpa — an informal but widely known 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.”

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美国前参议员乔恩·凯尔去世，享年84岁。他是一位来自亚利桑那州的资深共和党议员，曾参与制定美国西部具有里程碑意义的水资源政策，并指导了最高法院大法官布雷特·卡瓦诺的任命。

据与凯尔家族相识多年的通讯专家戈登·詹姆斯透露，凯尔于周三晚因神经系统疾病去世。凯尔在2025年12月宣布自己被诊断出患有痴呆症后，便退出了公众视野。

凯尔在国会任职近三十年，在参众两院都担任过议员，亲眼见证了他所在的政党经历了巨大的变革，他的职业生涯横跨了罗纳德·里根总统时期到唐纳德·特朗普总统的第一任期。

亚利桑那州前州长道格·杜西视凯尔为导师，他在 2025 年 2 月接受美联社采访时，将这位前参议员描述为一位真正的政治家，也是华盛顿特区众多“表演马”中的“实干家”。

“如果你在飞机上看到他，他当时坐在经济舱的过道里，正在看书，”杜西说。“他看的可能是一些法案或者参议院的议程。”

凯尔在参议院的最后一个完整任期内晋升至领导层，当时他的共和党同僚推选他为少数党党鞭。2013年退出政坛并成为一名游说者后，凯尔于2018年短暂重返国会，当时杜西任命他填补已故参议员约翰·麦凯恩留下的空缺。

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他的任命受到了特朗普的高度赞扬，特朗普表示期待与这位“杰出的参议员”共事。凯尔任职不到四个月，便重新加入了游说公司科文顿·柏灵律师事务所。

“在联邦层面，我很遗憾地说，情况确实如此，但我取得的很多比较好的成就可能是在防止坏事发生（而不是）强迫好事发生，”凯尔在 2012 年与前最高法院大法官桑德拉·戴·奥康纳的一次谈话中说道。

凯尔于1942年4月25日出生于内布拉斯加州奥克兰市，在爱荷华州的一个农村农业区长大，他的父亲曾是美国众议院议员，代表该选区。18岁时，他前往西南部的亚利桑那大学就读，在那里他遇到了妻子卡里尔，并获得了法学学位。

在1987年首次当选众议员之前，凯尔曾作为一家大型水务公司的律师，在亚利桑那州1980年地下水法的制定过程中发挥了关键作用。这部开创性的法典为这个饱受干旱之苦的州建立了一套地下水管理监管框架，其主要针对包括凤凰城和图森在内的州人口中心。

2004年，凯尔起草了一项法案，促成了规模最大的部落水权和解协议之一。经过数十年的斗争，该协议使吉拉河印第安社区每年获得足以填满近313,500个奥运会标准游泳池的水量。肯塔基州共和党参议员米奇·麦康奈尔（后来担任多数党领袖）在2012年的一次参议院演讲中称赞凯尔的工作态度“堪称传奇”，并表示凯尔为了推动这项和解协议的达成，在幕后默默耕耘了15年。

“那是我做过的最难的事情之一，但我当时身处关键位置，可以成为催化剂，”凯尔在2006年接受《凤凰城新时报》采访时说。“当时没有人能完成那项水资源交易。而且这件事必须有人去做。”

亚利桑那州立大学的凯尔水政策中心以他的名字命名。该中心主任莎拉·波特表示，凯尔慷慨地奉献时间，是该州国会代表团中一位卓有成效的成员，他对水政策采取了务实的态度。

波特说：“他一直都很关心公众利益，并且能够思考‘这对子孙后代意味着什么？’”他还补充说，直到最近几年，当他的妻子与健康问题作斗争时，凯尔仍然“精力充沛”。

杜西称凯尔是参议院的“巨人”，并进一步形容他为人严肃、平易近人、直言不讳且深思熟虑。杜西表示，凯尔最大的贡献在于他团结共和党党团反对奥巴马医改，以及他对以色列的坚定支持。

凯尔还支持一项法案，授权修建一条绵延数百英里的美墨边境围栏。后来，他又与民主党人联手支持一项法案，该法案旨在为那些未经授权进入美国的人提供获得公民身份和临时客工身份的途径。但该提案最终未能通过。

作为一名游说者，凯尔曾帮助特朗普提名的最高法院大法官卡瓦诺获得确认。2018年凯尔重返国会大厦时，他被称为卡瓦诺的首席向导——这是一个非正式但广为人知的说法，指的是被提名人在参议院政治漩涡中的向导。

在公布自己患有痴呆症的声明中，凯尔引用了里根总统的话。里根总统在公布自己患有阿尔茨海默病时曾表示，他即将开始一段通往生命终点的旅程。

凯尔表示，他和里根一样对亚利桑那州和国家的未来充满信心，尽管他被诊断出患有疾病，但他仍然是一个“非常幸运的人”。