Representative Tom Sawyer Contact information

Tom Sawyer was born on April 15, 1958, in Wichita, Kansas. He graduated from Wichita State University with a BBA in Accounting in 1984. He is a member of the Democratic Party and has represented the 95th district, covering southwest Wichita, since 2013.

Sawyer was first elected to the Kansas House of Representatives two years after his graduation in 1986. He became the party’s House Leader, and through his initial 12-year legislative career served as both the Majority Leader and the Minority Leader. He is only the fourth Democrat to ever be elected Majority Leader of the Kansas House and the only Wichitan to hold that position in the last 30 years.

After leaving the legislature for an unsuccessful run for Governor of Kansas in 1998, Sawyer served as State Chairman of the Kansas Democratic Party for four years before being once again elected to the state legislature in 2002. He was re-elected in 2004, 2006, and 2008, and served as chair of the Sedgwick County Legislative Delegation in 2005.

He resigned from the House of Representatives in 2009 to serve on the state Parole Board. Following the election of Republican Governor Sam Brownback in 2010, Sawyer left the Parole Board and in 2012 once again won election to the state House, defeating a Republican incumbent and returning to his position as the representative for the 95th district.

In 1998, Sawyer opted to run for Governor of Kansas to prevent controversial Westboro Baptist Church preacher Fred Phelps from obtaining the Democratic nomination. Though he won the primary in a landslide, Sawyer was defeated badly in the general election, losing all 105 counties and winning just 23% of the vote against popular incumbent Republican governor Bill Graves.

Sawyer ran for re-election to the Kansas House of Representatives to represent District 95. He won in the general election on November 8, 2022. His current term ends on January 13, 2025.