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Bill Dix had attempted to amend the state consitution to ban same-sex marriage.
Iowa Senate Majority Leader Bill Dix, who once proposed amending the state constitution to ban same-sex marriage, has resigned after video and photos surfaced of him kissing a female lobbyist in a Des Moines bar.
Dix resigned Monday, The Des Moines Registerreports. He gave no reason, "but the timing and subsequent statements from fellow lawmakers made clear his decision was linked to the report published Monday morning by the Iowa Starting Line political website," the Register notes.
The video shows Dix, who is married and a father of three, "in close conversation" with Lindsey McCune, a lobbyist for the Iowa League of Cities, according to the paper, followed by a kiss on the mouth. The encounter took place at a bar called the Waveland Tap.
State ethics laws and the Senate's ethics code "do not explicitly prohibit or regulate personal relationships between elected officials and lobbyists," the Register reports, but comments from lawmakers made clear that such relationships are not a good idea.
House Speaker Linda Upmire, like Dix a Republican, said elected officials shouldn't get romantically involved with people who are trying to influence their votes. "That's not the position we want to be in, and it's not a position we should be in," she told the Register. "We know better."
"After hearing the disappointing news about Senator Dix this morning, I believe he made the right decision in stepping down," added Gov. Kim Reynolds, also a Republican. "Iowans hold their elected officials to a high standard, and as elected officials, we have an obligation to lead."
Dix has taken typically conservative positions on economic issues, calling for lower taxes and fewer regulations on business, according to Ballotpedia. The senator ventured into social issues in 2011, sponsoring a constitutional amendment to limit marriages in Iowa to male-female unions. That would have nullified the 2009 Iowa Supreme Court ruling that made the state the third in the nation with marriage equality, after Massachusetts and Connecticut. The amendment, requiring approval in two consecutive legislative sessions as well as approval by voters, did not pass. He had cosponsored a similar amendment a few years earlier, as a member of the state House of Representatives.
He discussed the earlier attempt to ban marriage equality in an interview with the Quad-City Times in 2006, when he interrupted his state legislative career to make an unsuccessful run for Congress and pledged to add such an amendment to the U.S. Constitution as well. "I cosponsored the Constitutional Amendment in Iowa which defined marriage as between one man and one woman," he said. "I not only sponsored and voted for this amendment, but I was a leader who helped shepard this amendment through the Iowa House. Liberal activist judges are threatening our family values and you can count on me to be a leader in Congress who will stand up to them and work to pass this amendment to the United States Constitution."
Dix has been in the state legislature for 18 years. He was elected to the House in 1996, left in 2006 for his congressional run, and then was elected to the Senate in 2010. Iowa Senate Republicans planned to choose a new majority leader today.
