NASHVILLE, Tennessee — Jim Sasser, who served in the U.S. Senate for 18 years and was ambassador to China for six years, has died. He was 87.
Gray Sasser, his son, said his father died of a heart attack Tuesday night at his home in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
Sasser, a Democrat, represented Tennessee in the Senate from 1977 to 1995. President Bill Clinton then appointed him ambassador to China, a position he held until 2001.
Sasser was elected to the Senate in 1976, defeating Republican Bill Brock, and rose to become the party’s leader. From 1989 to 1992, he chaired the Budget Committee. He had a shot at becoming Senate caucus leader, but in 1994 he was defeated in re-election by Republican Bill Frist, then a political unknown and running for public office for the first time.
After retiring as ambassador, Sasser became an advisor.
Gray Sasser and his sister Elizabeth Sasser said in a written statement about their father: “He believed in the nobility of public service and the transformative power of government.”
He was most proud of his “quiet accomplishments” for ordinary Tennesseans, such as helping them apply for disability or VA benefits.
Sasser, born in Memphis, Tenn., grew up in Nashville. He graduated from Vanderbilt University in 1958 and from Vanderbilt Law School in 1961.
He practiced law in Nashville and became a Democratic activist, managing the unsuccessful re-election campaign of Senator Albert Gore Sr. in 1970. He was chairman of the Tennessee Democratic Party from 1973 to 1976, when he took a form of revenge by being elected to the Senate over Brock, whom Gore had defeated in 1970.
Sasser was reelected fairly easily in 1982 and 1988 before losing to Frist. Sasser was the last Democrat to represent Tennessee in the Senate.
After leaving the Senate, he was a fellow at Harvard University.
Sasser’s children wrote of their father: “As his friends and former associates will attest, Dad loved his family, the state of Tennessee, his years in the U.S. Senate, and he also loved old cars, and he loved them in that order.”
Other survivors include Sasser’s wife, Mary, and four grandchildren.