Ben Nighthorse Campbell Longtime Colorado Lawmaker Dies at 92

By Jesse Sarles | CBS News

Former Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, a Northern Cheyenne tribal chief who became a prominent American politician, has died. He was 92.

His daughter Shanan Campbell confirmed to CBS News that her father died Tuesday at his home on a ranch in southwestern Colorado surrounded by family members.  

Campbell served in Colorado’s congressional delegation across three different decades. He started out as a member of the Democratic Party and was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in the 1980s. In the mid-1990s, three years after his election to the U.S. Senate, he decided to leave the Democrats and switch to the Republican Party. He served two terms as senator and then retired in the 2000s because of what he said were concerns about his health.

“I thought it was a heart attack. It wasn’t,” Campbell said at the time. “But when I was lying on that table in the hospital looking up at all those doctors’ faces, I decided then, ‘Do I really need to do this six more years after I’ve been gone so much from home?’ I have two children I didn’t get to see grow up, quite frankly.”  

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