Calista Cooper Hughes (April 27, 1914 – July 10, 2004) was an American politician from Nebraska. After working briefly as a teacher following the retirement of her husband, she served as a state senator in the Nebraska Legislature from 1965 to 1969. She lost reelection in 1968, and subsequently served for five years as director of the Nebraska Comprehensive Health Planning Agency. Her election was the first in which two women were elected to the legislature at the same time. Her career has been characterized as supporting progressive policies.
Calista Cooper Hughes was born on April 27, 1914, in Humboldt, Nebraska. She attended the University of Nebraska, and after a short trip to Japan following her graduation, she married Morris Hughes. They were stationed in Ethiopia as the Second Italo-Ethiopian War commenced, and in Albania during the Italian invasion of that country. They had three children together: Calista Mary, Judith, and Morris Nelson Hughes. For the next several years, they were stationed in various locations in the United States and internationally. Her brother, John Cooper, was a state senator and ran for governor of Nebraska in 1960.
Following her husband's retirement in 1961, Cooper Hughes became a schoolteacher in Humboldt. In 1963, she filed to run for the first district in the following year's legislative race. The incumbent senator, Lloyd Stalder, did not run for reelection. After finishing second in the primary, she defeated Floyd W. Pohlman in the general election by 18 votes. In January 1965, her opponent asked the legislature to order a recount of the election, but Cooper Hughes claimed several illegal votes were cast for Pohlman, and the legislature voted (36 in favor, 8 against, led by Senator Terry Carpenter) to seat Cooper Hughes. It was the first time in Nebraska history that two women were elected to the state legislature in the same year; her companion was three-term incumbent Fern Hubbard Orme.
She was named the chair of the committee on public health and welfare in 1967. Her legislative work has been characterized as overall progressive, and she supported legislation to develop and maintain highways, reform healthcare, develop waterworks, and the consolidation of school districts. She supported the political reforms of Governor Norbert Tiemann. In the 1968 election, she lost to Irving F. Wiltse, and she left in 1969.
Following her defeat, Tiemann appointed her as the director of the Nebraska Comprehensive Health Planning Agency; she served for five years.
Cooper Hughes retired in 1975 and became an advisor to the National Academy of Sciences. In the year preceding her death, she became ill. She died on July 10, 2004, in Lincoln.