Jon Kyl, the Arizona Republican who climbed to the No. 2 job in the Senate across nearly three decades in Congress and reshaped how the arid West divides its water, died Wednesday night, September 16, 2026, of complications from a neurological disease. He was 84.
Gordon James, a communications professional and a longtime friend of the Kyl family, confirmed to the Associated Press that Kyl died Wednesday night from a neurological disorder. The family’s own statement, shared with Arizona’s KTAR News on September 17, attributed the death to complications from an unspecified neurological disease.
In December 2025, Kyl announced that he had been diagnosed with dementia and said he would withdraw from public life.
Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, said in a post: “Throughout his decades of public service in the House and Senate, he was a dedicated statesman who always cared deeply for our state.”
The Water Work That Endured
Water occupied Kyl years before he ever ran for anything. As a lawyer representing a water utility, he was a key participant in writing Arizona’s 1980 groundwater code, a first-of-its-kind law that built a framework for regulating groundwater in a drought-stricken state and trained its attention largely on population centers including Phoenix and Tucson.
He came back to the subject as a senator, sponsoring the Arizona Water Settlements Act. Congress approved that measure in 2004, and it authorized one of the largest tribal water rights settlements, a guarantee to the Gila River Indian Community of enough water annually to fill nearly 313,500 Olympic-sized swimming pools. It also rewrote parts of the earlier Southern Arizona Water Rights Settlement Act, covering the Tohono O’odham Nation. The Bureau of Indian Affairs later credited Kyl as a key figure in bringing stakeholders together and shepherding the act through Congress. In a 2012 floor speech, Sen. Mitch McConnell called Kyl’s work ethic legendary, saying he had spent 15 years advancing the settlement largely out of public view.
Sarah Porter directs the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University, which is named for him. She said Kyl was generous with his time and practical about water policy, and that he stayed mindful of what today’s decisions would mean for generations to come.
From Iowa Farm Country to Arizona
Kyl was born April 25, 1942, in Oakland, Nebraska. His father, Rep. John Henry Kyl, represented the Iowa farm-country district where the boy grew up, holding the seat in the U.S. House for more than 10 years. His mother was Arlene Kyl. At 18 he left for the Southwest and the University of Arizona, where he met his wife, Caryll. A bachelor’s degree came in 1964, and the Arizona Law Review made him its editor-in-chief before he finished at the James E. Rogers College of Law in 1966.
Jennings, Strouss & Salmon in Phoenix employed him in private practice, and, as his father had before him, he led the Phoenix Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce from 1984 to 1985. Kyl won the 1986 Republican primary over former Rep. John Conlan and took office in the U.S. House in 1987, where he served four terms. When Sen. Dennis DeConcini retired, he flipped the open seat in 1994 and went on to three Senate terms, from 1995 until his retirement in 2013.
Whip of a Shrunken Republican Minority
The conference’s No. 2 job went to him in 2007, when his colleagues elected him Republican whip, and he kept the post through his final full term. Republicans were down to 41 senators after the 2008 elections, and Kyl kept a fractious coalition together, leaning less on personal charm than on a knack for reducing a complicated bill to an argument a member could accept. Describing his whipping style in 2009, Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski said: “He’s got a way about him, a mannerism, I think that’s not aggressive, it’s not pushy. It’s, come on, let’s get this done.” She also said: “Everyone leaves the room thinking, yeah we can make this work.” He chaired the Senate Republican Policy Committee and the Senate Republican Conference as well, and sat on committees including intelligence, finance, judiciary and appropriations.
In a 2012 conversation with former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, Kyl said: “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.”
Iran drew a hard line from Kyl, who was tapped as vice chairman of the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States and who fought hard against proposals to shutter the detention center at Guantánamo Bay. A nuclear test ban treaty was Democrats’ goal in 1999, and he derailed that push; in 2005 he helped sink President George W. Bush’s nomination of White House counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court. Immigration legislation authorizing hundreds of miles of border fence won his support, and conservative anger followed in 2007 when he joined Democrats on the Judiciary Committee behind a bipartisan bill that offered a path to citizenship. TIME magazine put him on its list of the nation’s best senators in 2006 and, in 2010, among the world’s 100 most influential people.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune praised his skill as a legislator and his love for his state. Rep. Greg Stanton said Kyl’s seriousness and command of policy put him among the most effective leaders Arizona has sent to Washington.
A Short Return to McCain’s Seat
Leaving the Senate in 2013, Kyl joined the law and lobbying firm Covington and Burling as counsel. Facebook was among his clients there, retaining him while the company looked into allegations of discrimination against conservative-leaning users, and the conservative Judicial Crisis Network hired him as well. He later served as the Senate “sherpa” steering Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation. The death of Sen. John McCain left a vacancy that Gov. Doug Ducey filled with him in 2018, a choice President Donald Trump welcomed. Kyl stayed less than four months, resigning the appointed seat at the end of 2018 and returning to private life; Martha McSally was appointed to the seat in January 2019. He made a later Capitol Hill appearance in October 2023, testifying at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.
In a February 2025 interview with the Associated Press, Ducey called Kyl a “workhorse” among Washington’s “showhorses” and a giant in the Senate. “If you saw him on the plane, he was sitting in the aisle, in coach, and he was reading,” Ducey said.
After the death, Ducey wrote in a social media post: “Jon Kyl gave Arizona nearly three decades of principled, thoughtful leadership — and he gave me something just as valuable: his mentorship and friendship.” He added: “I’ll miss him deeply.” The 2012 elections sent Former Sen. Jeff Flake to the Senate as Kyl’s successor, and Flake said the government needs people willing to serve a cause larger than themselves, calling Kyl a true public servant. “Arizona has lost a giant,” Flake wrote on social media.
Kyl belonged to all of Arizona, a state he explored with vigor and curiosity, his family said, adding that he treated his service in Congress as both a privilege and a responsibility. The University of Arizona Libraries Special Collections took in his congressional papers in 2012, and the university established the Kyl Institute for National Security earlier in 2026. His wife, Caryll, survives him, as do two children, Kristine Kyl Gavin and John Kyl, and four grandchildren.
