text: After the mayor of Mount Pleasant was gunned down in December 1986, Vilsack led a fundraising drive to build a memorial fountain. The deceased mayor's father asked Vilsack to run for mayor of Mount Pleasant; he was elected and began serving in 1987. Vilsack was elected to the Iowa Senate in 1992. Following his election, he worked on legislation requiring companies who received state tax incentives to provide better pay and benefits.  He helped pass a law for workers to receive health coverage when changing jobs and helped redesign Iowa's Workforce Development Department. He also wrote a bill to have the State of Iowa assume a 50% share of local county mental health costs.
  In 1995, Vilsack voted for H.F. 519 "to protect animal agricultural producers".
  The founder of hog factory farming operation Iowa Select Farms Jeff Hansen was pleased, and is quoted as saying the bill was a fair compromise.
  Governor of Iowa, 1999-2007
  In 1998, Terry Branstad chose not to seek re-election after 16 years as governor. The Iowa Republican Party nominated Jim Ross Lightfoot, a former U.S. Representative. Vilsack defeated former Iowa Supreme Court Justice Mark McCormick in the Democratic primary and chose Sally Pederson as his running mate. Lightfoot was the odds-on favorite to succeed Branstad and polls consistently showed him in the lead. However, Vilsack narrowly won the general election and became the first Democrat to serve as governor of Iowa in thirty years and only the fifth Democrat to hold the office in the 20th century.