Senator J.R. Claeys serves Saline and Dickinson County in the Kansas Senate. First elected in 2012 to the Kansas House of Representatives, Claeys was re-elected in 2014, 2016 and 2018. In 2020, Claeys ran for the Kansas Senate and won election to a four-year term in a landslide. He currently serves as the vice chairman of the budget-writing Senate Committee on Ways and Means.
The youngest of three and a fifth-generation Kansan, Claeys was raised in a middle-class family in Salina and is proud to represent his hometown in the Statehouse. He works every day to grow the economy of central Kansas, and is committed to building a region that is a great place to live, work and raise a family.
Claeys is a graduate of Kansas State University with a B.S. in Journalism and holds an M.P.A. from the George Washington University School of Business.
In addition to serving in the Kansas Senate, Claeys works as vice president of the nation’s largest Republican campaign firm, Axiom Strategies. He is also a Senior Advisor to Republican Attorney General Kris Kobach.