For nearly two decades, farmers, tribal nations and cities across central Arizona fought over the state's dwindling water, a fight that would not end until Congress passed the Arizona Water Settlements Act in 2004. Jon Kyl, the three-term Arizona Republican senator who spent years brokering that deal and later rose to Senate Minority Whip, died Wednesday, September 16, 2026, at 84, according to a statement from his family. He had also briefly returned to the Senate in 2018 to fill the seat of his friend and colleague John McCain. "It was one of the hardest things I've ever done, but I was in a position to be the catalyst," Kyl said of the water settlement, according to NBC News. "There wasn't anybody else who could do that water deal. And it had to be done."

Kyl was born April 25, 1942, in Oakland, Nebraska, and grew up largely in Iowa, where his father, John H. Kyl, represented the state in the U.S. House of Representatives. "I'm sure that a lot of my understanding about things came from my father, who was a very smart guy," Kyl once said, adding that "a little bit of the Potomac fever" and an early interest in government came from trips back to Washington with his family, according to Roll Call. He earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Arizona in 1964 and a law degree from the university's College of Law in 1966. He met his future wife, Caryll Collins, at the university, and the two married in 1964, raising two children, John Kyl and Kristine Kyl Gavin, and four grandchildren, according to GV Wire.

Before entering politics, Kyl practiced law as an attorney for the Salt River Project water utility and helped draft Arizona's 1980 Groundwater Management Act, early work on the issue that would define much of his career in Congress.

He was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1986 and served four terms representing Arizona before winning, in 1994, the Senate seat vacated by the retirement of Democratic Sen. Dennis DeConcini, according to Roll Call. He took his Senate seat in January 1995 and served on the Judiciary and Finance Committees, taking part over the years in confirmation proceedings for Supreme Court justices John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. On Finance, he pushed for repeal of the federal estate tax and for extending the Bush-era tax cuts, and he worked at various points with Democratic colleagues on broader immigration legislation, though those efforts ultimately stalled.

In 2007 his Republican colleagues elected him Senate Minority Whip, the chamber's number two Republican post, and he held it until he left the Senate in January 2013. Doug Ducey, the former Arizona governor, remembered him as 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." Sen. Lisa Murkowski, describing how Kyl operated as whip, said in 2009: "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." "Everyone leaves the room thinking, yeah we can make this work," she added, according to a 2009 Roll Call profile.

After leaving the Senate, Kyl became a lobbyist and counsel at Covington & Burling. He returned to Washington in September 2018 when Gov. Doug Ducey appointed him to temporarily fill the seat left vacant by the death of Sen. John McCain, serving roughly four months before resigning at year's end. During that brief return, Kyl served as the Senate's confirmation "Sherpa" guiding Judge Brett Kavanaugh through the meetings and vote counting that led to his October 2018 confirmation to the Supreme Court.

Time magazine named Kyl one of the nation's best senators in 2006 and later counted him among its 100 most influential people in the world, according to the Arizona Capitol Times. Arizona State University named its Kyl Center for Water Policy in his honor, and the University of Arizona established the Kyl Institute for National Security this year. Sarah Porter, director of the ASU center, said Kyl always cared about the public good and thought about what his work would mean for future generations.

Jeff Flake, who succeeded him in the Senate, said, "Arizona has lost a giant," and Senate Majority Leader John Thune called him "a true legislator's legislator." In a statement, Kyl's family said: "We know that Jon belonged to all of Arizona, a state he loved and explored with vigor, curiosity, and wonder. Serving his state and nation in Congress was a privilege and responsibility he honored and respected. We are grateful for his full and meaningful public life."

Kyl spent almost three decades in Congress without becoming a household name outside Arizona, preferring the work of moving bills and counting votes to the spotlight. The water settlement he fought to pass still delivers water to the Gila River Indian Community, and the institutes at Arizona State and the University of Arizona that carry his name continue the water and security policy work he pursued for most of his life. From his law practice at the Salt River Project to four terms in the House, three terms in the Senate, and a final short tour guiding a Supreme Court nominee through confirmation, his career traced a single instinct: find the deal that has to be done, and do it.