Terry Branstad, in Iowa court, says he didn't discriminate when he cut gay official's pay

Testifying in an Iowa courtroom Friday, former governor and current U.S. Ambassador to China Terry Branstad defended his decision eight years ago to ask for the resignation of a gay state official and cut his pay.

"I have always treated everyone, gay or straight, with respect and dignity. That's the way I have always operated," Branstad said Friday in Polk County District Court.

Branstad is being sued for discrimination by former Iowa Workers' Compensation Commissioner Chris Godfrey, a Democrat. Godfrey, who is gay, accused Branstad, a Republican, of cutting his pay as punishment after Godfrey refused to resign after Branstad took office. Workers' compensation commissioners are appointed to six-year terms to shield the position from political influence.

Branstad said he made the decision because of concerns with Godfrey's fairness and a desire to have someone on his team who supported his plan for Iowa.

Branstad's attorney, Frank Harty, posed him the question directly.

"Would you look this jury in the eye and tell them whether you asked Christopher Godfrey to resign because of his sexual orientation?" Harty asked.

"No," Branstad said on the witness stand.

"Did you lower Christopher Godfrey’s salary because of his sexual orientation?" Harty asked.

"No."

The former governor flew in from China to testify in the case for one day only, per an agreement with the State Department.

'I wanted to give him the opportunity to voluntarily resign'

When he took office in 2011 after previously serving as governor in the 1980s and 1990s, Branstad sent a letter to all the department heads and division directors in state government asking them to resign so he could put his own team in place. He said it was the practice of newly elected governors to do so.

Godfrey, who was appointed to a six-year term, was one of three officials to refuse.  Branstad could not force Godfrey to leave.

"I wanted to give him the opportunity to voluntarily resign, but I knew that I did not have the right to require him to," Branstad said.

The workers' compensation commissioner acts as a sort of judge who decides disputes over whether companies should pay compensation to workers when they are injured. Branstad said while he was running for the governor's office in 2010 he heard complaints from business groups that Godfrey was not fair to employers.

Godfrey's lawyer, Paige Fiedler, repeatedly asked Branstad if he evaluated Godfrey's performance or took into consideration the opinions of anyone other than business owners.

"Did anybody tell you that he wasn’t fair other than a business owner?" Fiedler asked.

"Well, a number of people did and I don’t know if they were business owners or not," Branstad said.

Branstad said he took those concerns into account when setting the salaries of his cabinet and cut Godfrey's salary from $112,070 to $73,250 — the lowest allowed by law for the job.

"I felt that a salary at the top of the range, certainly considering all these problems with performance, was not appropriate," Branstad said. "And so I set his salary at the bottom of the range."

Branstad said he didn't know Godfrey was gay until after he had cut Godfrey's salary and was threatened with a lawsuit.

Branstad's 2010 race comes under scrutiny

The 2010 Republican primary for governor was shaped in part by the topic of same-sex marriage. A year before, the Iowa Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision legalizing same-sex marriage in Iowa and sparking fury among conservatives.

Branstad at the time described himself as "really shocked" by the decision; he advocated overturning it in a recording that the jury heard on Friday.

"I believe it needs to be overturned with a constitutional amendment," he said in the recording.

A Republican primary opponent, Bob Vander Plaats, ran on a platform focused on opposing the Supreme Court's decision. When he lost, he ran a successful campaign to oust three justices who had participated in the ruling to legalize same-sex marriage.

"He put a lot of pressure on you from the right, didn't he?" Fiedler asked.

"And I beat him," Branstad said.

Vander Plaats wanted to go further than Branstad and sign an executive order overturning the court's decision. Branstad said he didn't support that idea because it wouldn't work.

"The only thing that an executive order would do is the Supreme Court would overturn that and it would just discredit the governor. So I made it clear that, even though a lot of people wanted that, I was not going to do that," Branstad said in court Friday.

After losing the primary, Vander Plaats tried to become the GOP's lieutenant governor nominee, losing to now-Gov. Kim Reynolds.

"I did not want him to be my lieutenant governor candidate. I did not want that position to be the position of our candidacy," Branstad said. Instead, he said he wanted to focus on creating jobs, growing incomes and repairing the state's financial condition.

Branstad said public opinion on same-sex marriage has changed over time with the Iowa Supreme Court ruling and a 2015 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.

Branstad said he now supports LGBT rights and said he's hosted Pride events as ambassador in Beijing. Asked to define LGBT, or lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender, Branstad said, "Lesbian, gay, transgender. All of those things."

"People have accepted it and I support it," he said.

The jury began hearing arguments in the monthlong trial on June 5. If jurors agree with Godfrey's claim, they could award him financial damages.

The trial is taking place nearly a decade after Branstad asked Godfrey to resign and seven years after Godfrey first sued in 2012. In the years since, Branstad won reelection, resigned the governorship and moved to China to become the U.S. ambassador. Godfrey moved to Washington, D.C., where he is now the chief judge of the board that decides federal workers' compensation disputes.