Noted in Passing Here in Arizona: Jon Kyl ...Jon Kyl, Republican Senator Known for His Skills Behind the Scenes, Dies at 84 - The New York Times

NEWS FROM THE RIGHT: Jon Kyl (born John Llewellyn Kyl) is a former U.S. Senator from Arizona who died at age 84 on September 17, 2026, from complications of a neurological disease. 

He served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1987 to 1995 and the U.S. Senate from 1995 to 2013, where he held the position of Senate Minority Whip from 2007 to 2013.

In 2018, he briefly returned to the Senate to fill the seat vacated by the death of John McCain, serving until the end of that year before being succeeded by Martha McSally. 

1. During this final stint, he played a key role in guiding the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. 
2. Before his political career, Kyl was an attorney and lobbyist who helped shape Arizona's 1980 groundwater code and later negotiated significant tribal water rights settlements, including one for the Gila River Indian Community in 2004. 

NEWS FROM THE LEFT: Jon Kyl (John Llewellyn Kyl), the former U.S. Senator from Arizona, died at age 84 on September 16, 2026, from complications of a neurological disease. 

He was a Republican who served in the U.S. House from 1987 to 1995 and the Senate from 1995 to 2013, where he rose to become the Senate Minority Whip.

Key Career Highlights

• Water Policy: Kyl was a leading expert on Western water issues, authoring the Arizona Water Settlement Act in 2004, which provided one of the largest tribal water rights settlements in U.S. history to the Gila River Indian Community and the Tohono O'odham Nation.

• Political Role: Often described as a behind-the-scenes "workhorse" and "operator," he was a key figure in the Republican Senate caucus and helped guide the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

• Brief Return: In 2018, he was appointed by Governor Doug Ducey to fill the Senate seat vacated by the death of John McCain, serving for three months before resigning. 

NEWS FROM MESAZONA BLOG >>

Thursday, December 13, 2018

The Intercept Catches AZ Temp-Senator/Capitol Hill Veteran Jon Kyl In The Revolving Door

The question now - after the stunning politically-tinged temporary appointment on September 4th by Arizona Governor Doug Ducey of lobbyist Jon Kyl to fill a seat in The U.S. Senate left empty by the untimely death of John McCain - is how dicey can it get??
Was it "a call back to public service" or something else? 
When a well-respected international investigative reporting fire-brand organization like The Intercept pays attention, we started to get the spotlight on Kyl just three days ago:  
Let's get right to the point > to his critics — it is one of the most corrupt tenures in the modern history of the Senate. . ."

The Remarkable Tale of the Corporate Lobbyist Sworn In as a Temporary U.S. Senator

by David Dayen 10 Dec 2018, 6:56 a.m.

 
". . . Kyl, who served in the House and the Senate for decades but retired in 2012, was chosen to replace the late John McCain on an interim basis, as a placeholder before a special election for the seat in 2020. But Kyl, who was sworn in September 5, never committed to filling out the vacancy for the next two years; from the beginning, he only committed to serve through the lame-duck session, and he is widely expected to leave after that. That means that the final senator for the next Congress has yet to be determined.
Few have paid much attention to Kyl, who is wrapping up one of the strangest and — to his critics — one of the most corrupt tenures in the modern history of the Senate. . ."
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Blogger Note: Google tells me that there's been an unusual amount of traffic on my network.
Am I a Robot? Definitely not! 
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Another take-away from David Dayan in The Intercept

Kyl was a registered lobbyist at a powerhouse D.C. law firm, who lived and worked in Washington for five and a half years before taking a four-month gig as a senator. His only floor speeches have involved matters at least glancingly tied to his lobbying. His entire term of office seems like a calculated attempt to refresh his contacts and gain clout from the inside, only to spin back out to influence the institution. He’s supposed to represent Arizona, but increasingly it appears that he only represents K Street.

“Kyl’s power had diminished significantly over time,” said Jeff Hauser, director of the Revolving Door Project at the Center for Economic and Policy Research. “By getting this dip into the Senate, he gets an increased profile, an increased rolodex. It burnishes his stature but does nothing for the republic.”
Jon Kyl served 26 years on Capitol Hill, first with four terms in the House of Representatives and then with three terms in the Senate. He rose to Senate minority whip, the No. 2 position in the Republican leadership, in 2007.
Upon retirement in 2012, it only took Kyl three months to make his way through the revolving door. He actually began his career as a lobbyist, so this was a return trip . . .

THIS STORY IS SO RIPE-TO-BE-TOLD
It gets right at the heart of politics here in Arizona where local reporters fear to tread.
Your MesaZona is more than thrilled and more than excited to see an award-winning international investigative journalism organization like The Intercept get into the deep-dirt on the playing-field of politics to blow-the-whistle for what's gone on here for way far too long. . .
What Arizona investigative reporters will take the ball and run with it?

 

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Other details:

> Everything about Kyl’s second go-round in the Senate is rather strange. Kyl had lived in Arizona when he represented the state in Congress, but by September 2018, he had a primary job in Washington for five and a half years. Article I, Section 3 of the Constitution stipulates, “No Person shall be a Senator who shall not … be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen.” But this was never cited as disqualifying for his appointment.

There is no record of Kyl returning to Arizona during his current Senate tenure except for a trip at the end of October, when the Senate was out of session, which included a check-in on forestry projects in Flagstaff and a campaign swing for Martha McSally. There’s also no record of Kyl maintaining a residence in the state. Kyl’s office did not return a detailed request for comment.

> “Family needs” is a euphemism for the desire to hoover up more money as a lobbyist, for which the rent-a-senator stint will provide a chance to raise his rates.
Kyl is using McCain’s Senate office and his legislative offices in Arizona. Kyl’s staff appears to have borrowed from McCain; his press secretary Rachael Dean Wilson was a McCain aide. He was given McCain’s old committee assignments on Indian Affairs, Homeland Security, and Armed Services. These don’t connect to what Kyl had previously held at all; he was on the Judiciary and Finance committees.
It does, however, connect to Kyl’s lobbying clients. The Armed Services Committee in particular is a plum assignment for a once and (potentially) future Northrop Grumman and Raytheon lobbyist (or non-lobbyist, as the registration case may be).
> Since returning to the Senate, Kyl has amassed a voting record that’s 100 percent in alignment with President Donald Trump. Many of his former clients have business before the Senate. Freeport McMoran, a mining concern, wanted copper on a draft list of critical minerals; Kyl had lobbied for them. Qualcomm wanted its hardware to be used in vehicle-to-vehicle communication; Kyl had lobbied on that.
YOU ARE INVITED TO READ MORE :
https://theintercept.com/2018/12/10/jon-kyl-senator-arizona/

Health and Death

Kyl announced in December 2025 that he was withdrawing from public life after being diagnosed with dementia. His family announced his death on Thursday, September 17, 2026, citing complications from a neurological disorder.

Monday, March 18, 2019

"A Fireside Chat": Stone Cold Governor Ducey & Revolving-Door Ex-Arizona Senator Jon Kyl

A group of libertarian and conservative Republican members of The Federalist Society held a symposium over the weekend at ASU starting with breakfast on Friday. One thing they all adhere to is originalism - whatever that intent is to interpret the Constitution written in the 18th Century based on economic principles at the time, that are of course subject to a changing world now in the 21st Century.
What we get: current Arizona governor Doug Ducey and Revolving-Door former Arizona Senator John Kyl who was appointed by the governor to fill an empty seat for 4 months.
They're brought together for what's called "a Fireside Chat" lasting over an hour on Friday evening. There are also six other streaming videos from the event about other topics relevant to the 21st Century, including Blockchain technology > https://fedsoc.org/

Arizona has long been at the forefront of promoting economic liberty and free market ideals, and this year’s symposium reflects this commitment by focusing on "The Resurgence of Economic Liberty."  The theme is inspired by Frédéric Bastiat’s maxim: “Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws.  On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place.”
The story of the American founding is inextricably linked with a quest for economic liberty.  From restrictions on trade to heavy taxes, tyranny in the economic sphere is one of the most commonly cited abuses of governmental power that sparked the American Revolution.  Economic theories played a central role in the debates leading to the Constitution’s ratification.

In discussing factions, relations among the states, congressional powers, and other fundamental constitutional themes, the Founders recognized the critical ways in which the ideas of liberty, justice, and equality could only be realized through an understanding of markets and related economic interests.
Indeed, the “American Dream” itself can be characterized in terms of economic self-determination, including the right to choose a profession, earn a livelihood, and buy and sell on the same terms as fellow citizens.  The twentieth century witnessed a vast expansion of governmental power and the administrative state, which some scholars have argued has distorted the Framers’ original constitutional design—all with a profound impact on economic liberty and welfare, and thus the way of life for millions of Americans.
Today, Americans remain deeply divided over the meaning and importance of economic liberty, and, as a result, the topic often animates social discourse and decision-making at all levels of government.  The question of how much the government ought to intrude into the economic realm is a fundamental fault line that divides not only American conservatives and liberals, but also conservatives and libertarians, as well as adherents to various schools of thought within each of those political philosophies.  As a matter of constitutional interpretation, even staunch originalists disagree with one another over the extent to which the nation’s charter protects economic liberty.
The Symposium’s panels will

• focus on the legal and philosophical roots of economic liberty
• explore how those roots should inform jurisprudence and political thought in addressing contemporary issues.  

The panels will delve deeply into first principles underlying our constitutional scheme as well as explore their application to cutting-edge technologies, regulatory schemes, and business models. We will challenge attendees to deepen their understanding of the relationship between economic liberty and legal rights, and to test personal economic beliefs against commitments to originalism and the rule of law.

OPENING REMARKS:

53:57 

Opening Remarks and Welcome to Arizona [Live Stream]

Duration: 53 minutes.

278 views

2 days ago

The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies is a group of conservatives and libertarians interested in the current state of the legal order. 

It is founded on the principles

• that the state exists to preserve freedom
• that the separation of governmental powers is central to our Constitution
• that it is emphatically the province and duty of the judiciary to say what the law is, not what it should be. 

The Society seeks both to promote an awareness of these principles and to further their application through its activities.
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Saturday Evening Banquet "Fireside Chat" Keynote:
Featuring:

Keynote: Hon. Doug Ducey, Governor, State of Arizona

Keynote Moderator: Hon. Jon Kyl, Former Interim U.S. Senator Appointed Sep 2018

Streamed live on Mar 16, 2019

Views: 186 [at time of upload to this blog site]

 We're thrilled to announce that Arizona Governor Doug Ducey will be our Keynote speaker at the Saturday evening banquet. Governor Ducey was the CEO of Cold Stone Creamery before becoming Arizona's 32nd State Treasurer. In 2014 he was elected the 23rd Governor of Arizona.

This will be a "fireside chat" moderated by Senator Jon Kyl (AZ)

former member of the U.S. House of Representatives (AZ) (1987-1995)
Senate Minority Whip