KASSEBAUM, BAKER PLAN WEDDING BELLS.

Byline: Associated Press 

They're done with the Senate and ready to set up their own house: Sen. Nancy Landon Kassebaum confirmed Friday that she will marry former Tennessee Sen. Howard Baker.

Kassebaum told The Associated Press she will wait until after the Nov. 5 election to announce the wedding date and other specifics.

``This all developed this year,'' Kassebaum said by telephone from Washington. ``This is harder than announcing how I was going to get out of the Senate.''

Kassebaum, 64, did not seek re-election this year and will complete her third six-year term in the Senate in January.

Baker, 70, also served 18 years in the Senate, ending as Senate majority leader in 1985, and was briefly White House chief of staff for Ronald Reagan. He left that job in mid-1988 to help his ailing wife, Joy, who died of cancer in 1993. He now practices law in Tennessee and Washington.

Kassebaum was divorced from attorney Phil Kassebaum in 1979, about six months after winning election to the Senate.

Bride and groom both come from powerful Republican families. Kassebaum is the daughter of Alf M. Landon, Kansas' governor in 1933-37 and the unsuccessful GOP nominee for president in 1936.

Baker's father, Howard H. Baker Sr., served in the House from 1951 until his death in 1964 and his mother, Lillie Ladd Mauser, was sheriff of Roane County, Tenn. His first wife was the daughter of Sen. Everett M. Dirksen, R-Ill., another Senate Republican leader.