Tom Sawyer, congressman who challenged Census Undercount, dies at age 77

Tom Sawyer, an eight-term Democratic congressman from Ohio whose concern that the 1990 census had missed more than two million black Americans prompted the federal government to improve its later population numbers, died May 20 at a nursing home in Akron. He turned 77.

His wife, Joyce (Handler) Sawyer, said the cause was Parkinson’s disease.

Mr. Sawyer was chairman of the House Post Office and Civil Service Subcommittee on Census and Population when he cited evidence of the undercount and urged the Census Bureau to adjust the count. The census is conducted every 10 years and determines the distribution of congressional seats and the distribution of billions of dollars in federal spending among the states.

The agency’s then-director, Barbara Everitt Bryant (who passed away in March), had originally recommended an adjustment, despite the statistical challenges it would have entailed. However, she was overruled by Secretary of Commerce Robert A. Mosbacher, who said that while it might be possible to make the national census more accurate, adjusting the local numbers on which the distribution was based could actually lead to additional miscalculations. to lead.

Mr Sawyer denounced Mr Mosbacher’s decision as a “gerrymander on a national scale”.

By stating that he had found a “real consensus that early planning for 2000 will improve the process,” Mr. Sawyer successfully urged Congress to commission a study by the National Academy of Sciences into how the agency could more accurate count.

In 1990, the undercount, believed to have shortchanged the older cities in the Northeast and industrial Midwest cities like Akron, was originally estimated to be as much as 2.1 percent and later revised to about 1.6 per cent. In 2000, with new bureau procedures inspired in part by the National Academy study, the undercount would have been only about 0.49 percent.

Mr. Sawyer served in local, state and national offices for nearly five decades. He was a member of the Ohio House of Representatives from 1977 to 1983, the mayor of Akron from 1984 to 1986, a congressman from northeastern Ohio from 1987 to 2003, and a member of the Ohio State Senate from 2007 to 2016.

In Congress, he voted against the strict welfare legislation (officially the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act) signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1996. In 2003, he opposed the deployment of US troops in Iraq.

Speaking from the House floor, he also scorned President Clinton’s impeachment, making the famous statement of Sir Thomas More, who was executed in 1535 for his religious beliefs, who said, My heart. It’s a long road you’ve opened. God help the statesmen who walk your way.

Thomas Charles Sawyer was born in Akron on August 15, 1945. His mother, Jean (Galloway) Sawyer, was a dietitian at the hospital. His father, who was president of a company that made industrial fans, was called Furman, but everyone called him Tom, after the Mark Twain character. The couple decided that since their son would likely be given the same nickname, they might as well call him Thomas.

Mr. Sawyer received a bachelor’s degree in English in 1968 and a master’s degree in urban education in 1970, both from the University of Akron. He began his career as a teacher in Cleveland before being elected to the state legislature in 1977, where he was instrumental in reforming the redistricting of legislative districts to curb the influence of partisan politics.

In addition to his wife, he is survived by his daughter, Amanda Kraus. He lived in Akron.