WASHINGTON — Sen. Bob Dole’s casket will lie in state in the U.S. Capitol on Thursday as congressional leaders pay their respects to the World War II veteran, longtime statesman and former Republican presidential candidate.

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Dole, who served in Congress for 36 years and was instrumental in the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act as well as the creation of the World War II Memorial, died Sunday at the age of 98. He announced in February 2021 that he had been diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer.

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In addition to his ADA success, Dole was most proud of helping to rescue Social Security in 1983, and of mustering a majority of reluctant Republicans to support President Bill Clinton’s unpopular plan to send American troops to Bosnia in 1995, The New York Times reported.

The former Senate majority leader mounted three unsuccessful bids for president, losing most recently when President Bill Clinton was reelected in 1996. He also sought the Republican party’s nomination in both 1980 and 1988, and was the 1976 GOP vice presidential candidate on the losing ticket with President Gerald Ford, NBC News reported.

According to the Times, Dole was named national Republican chairman under President Richard M. Nixon in the early 1970s; chairman of the Senate Finance Committee during Ronald Reagan’s presidency in the 1980s; and presidential standard-bearer during Newt Gingrich’s “revolution” of the mid-1990s, “when the Republicans captured the House for the first time in 40 years and upended the power dynamic on Capitol Hill.”

-- The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Through the years American politician and Senator from Kansas, Robert Dole. Dole was the vice-presidential candidate of the Republican Party in the elections of 1976 and also the losing candidate in the 1996 presidential elections. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images) (Keystone/Getty Images)

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