Year in review: Longest serving Iowa governor heads to China

*This storyline was voted as one of the top storylines of 2017 by Gazette staff. Other top storylines include the debate over the defunding of Planned Parenthood, flood repair efforts and Iowa's opioid crisis among others.*

Raised in a Democratic household and schooled in the liberal bastion of Iowa City, Terry Branstad began his life as unlikely as it could ever be to become a Republican who won election after election and broke the record as America's longest-serving governor at nearly 23 years.

At 36, he became Iowa's youngest governor when he took office in 1983. After a hiatus and returning in 2011, he left the office May 24 as the oldest, at age 70.

Branstad, packing his belongings, his family and his trademark mustache, is now living in Beijing, serving as U.S. ambassador to China.

In his final months in Iowa, he infuriated political opponents by signing into law measures that sapped public workers of collective bargaining rights, limited the benefits available to employees injured on the job, made pregnant women wait three days for an abortion and took public money away from the GOP nemesis of Planned Parenthood.

'I will not shed a tear for his departure to China. He cannot leave soon enough as far as I am concerned,” said Danny Homan, president of American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 61.

But Branstad charmed the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee that held his confirmation hearing as ambassador - even drawing compliments from its ranking Democrat.

Branstad, who calls himself and ‘old friend of China,' first befriended Xi Jinping in 1983 when Xi was a low-level party leader on a tour of Iowa agriculture. They have remained friends as Xi ascended to become president of China.

When Branstad resigned as governor, he turned the job over to Kim Reynolds, who had been his lieutenant since 2011. Next year, she faces an election to see if she stays in the job.