Governor of Iowa (1983-1999)
When elected governor at age 36, Branstad was the youngest chief executive in Iowa's history and when he left office, was Iowa's longest-serving governor. He served as Chair of the National Governors Association during 1989–1990, and was Chair of the Midwestern Governors Association. In 1997, he chaired the Education Commission of the States, the Republican Governors Association, and the Governors' Ethanol Coalition.
In 1991, Branstad ignored binding arbitration with employees of the State of Iowa's labor unions by vetoing a salary bill, was taken to court, and lost later in appeals in the state court system (AFSCME Iowa Council 61 et al., v. Branstad). In 1983, he vetoed a bill that would allow a state lottery. Iowa’s unemployment rate went from 8.5% when he took office to a record low 2.5% by the time he left in 1999. In his first year as Governor, the state budget had a $90 million deficit. It took several years until the budget was balanced. He claimed that he didn’t have enough support in the legislature to approve budget reforms until 1992. By 1999, Iowa had an unprecedented $900 million budget surplus.
Read more about this topic: Terry Branstad
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“Ah, Governor [Murphy, of New Jersey], don’t try to deceive me as to the sentiment of the dear people. I have been hearing from the West and the East, and the South seems to be the only section which approves of me at all, and that comes from merely a generous impulse, for even that section would deny me its votes.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
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—Bill Bryson (b. 1951)