Born in
Wichita, Kansas, Sawyer graduated from
Wichita State University with a BBA in Accounting in 1984. He was first elected to the
Kansas House of Representatives two years later 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 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. In 2012 he again won election to the state House, defeating a Republican incumbent and returning to his position as the representative for the 95th district. ==1998 gubernatorial campaign==