James Ralph Sasser was an American politician, diplomat, and attorney from Tennessee. A member of the Democratic Party, he served three terms as a member of the United States Senate from 1977 to 1995, and was Chairman of the United States Senate Committee on the Budget. From 1996 to 1999, during the Clinton administration, he was the United States Ambassador to China. To date, he is the most recent Democratic U.S. senator from Tennessee.
