Jon Kyl, the Arizona Republican who climbed to his party’s No. 2 post in the Senate across nearly three decades in Congress and rewrote the way the arid West parcels out its water, died Wednesday night, September 16, 2026, at 84, of complications from a neurological disease. His family announced the death the following day.
Gordon James, a family friend and a communications professional, confirmed in an account published September 17 that a neurological disorder had killed Kyl — the first named source outside the family’s own statement to describe the cause.
Kyl announced a dementia diagnosis in December 2025 and said he would withdraw from public life.
In a post, Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, said: “Throughout his decades of public service in the House and Senate, he was a dedicated statesman who always cared deeply for our state.”
The Work on Water That Lasted
Water was Kyl’s subject long before he held office. As an attorney for the Salt River Project, he did the work that laid the groundwork for the Arizona Groundwater Management Act and the creation of the Arizona Department of Water Resources. That first-of-its-kind law built a regulatory framework for managing groundwater in a drought-stricken state, aimed largely at population centers including Phoenix and Tucson. Over 26 years in Congress, 18 of his bills became law, among them measures funding crime victims, authorizing land exchanges for Yuma and Sedona, setting prisoner copays for certain health services and barring nepotism in federal court appointments.
He came back to the subject in the Senate as sponsor of the Arizona Water Settlements Act, which Congress approved in 2004. The measure authorized one of the largest tribal water rights settlements, guaranteeing the Gila River Indian Community enough water each year to fill nearly 313,500 Olympic-sized swimming pools, and it rewrote portions of the earlier Southern Arizona Water Rights Settlement Act, which covers the Tohono O’odham Nation. 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, who directs the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University — launched in 2014 and named for him — said Kyl was generous with his time, practical about water policy and mindful of what today’s decisions would mean for generations to come.
From Iowa Farm Country to Arizona
Born April 25, 1942, in Oakland, Nebraska, Kyl grew up in an Iowa farm-country district that his father, Rep. John Henry Kyl, held in the U.S. House for more than 10 years. His mother was Arlene Kyl. At 18 he headed southwest to the University of Arizona, where he met his future wife, Caryll Collins, took a bachelor’s degree in 1964 and finished at the James E. Rogers College of Law in 1966 as editor-in-chief of the Arizona Law Review.
Kyl practiced law at Jennings, Strouss & Salmon in Phoenix and, as his father had before him, led the Phoenix Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce from 1984 to 1985. He beat former Rep. John Conlan in the 1986 Republican primary and entered the U.S. House in 1987, where he served four terms. He flipped the open Senate seat in 1994 after Sen. Dennis DeConcini retired, then served three terms, from 1995 until his retirement in 2013.
Whip of a Shrunken Republican Minority
His colleagues elected him Republican whip in 2007, the conference’s No. 2 job, and he held it through his final full term.
