After a court ruling established marriage equality in Iowa, Democrats (lead by State Senate Majority Leader and DLCC Chairman Mike Gronstal) promised to block any bill to ban same-sex marriage in Iowa. A few days ago, Iowa’s Democratic legislators delivered on that promise, effectively blocking a Republican-sponsored marriage ban for the rest of the legislative session:

What Republicans wanted was the right to pull House Joint Resolution 6 out of a committee so that it would be placed on the debate calendar and avoid a legislative deadline this week.

The effort failed in the Senate where a vote was not taken. However, all 18 Senate Republicans signed a petition circulated by Sen. David Johnson, R-Ocheyedan (…)

The House spent almost 30 minutes on a rarely used “call-of-the-House” in which each of the 100 members were ordered into the chambers to vote unless they were previously excused. The House measure ultimately failed in a 45 to 54 vote that was mostly along party lines.

What’s most striking is that each chamber had just a single Democrat willing to go on record supporting the ban. Every other rank-and-file legislator, including many Democrats facing tough re-election campaigns in conservative districts, stood with Majority Leader Gronstal and House Speaker Pat Murphy on the right side of history.

The good folks over at Bleeding Heartland took a moment to acknowledge the role Leadership played in both results:

Murphy and Iowa Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal strongly supported the Iowa Supreme Court's Varnum v Brien ruling, and they deserve a lot of credit for holding their caucuses together today. As Gronstal has promised, Republicans will not succeed in writing discrimination into our state's constitution.

Hear at the DLCC, we couldn’t be more proud of our Chairman and all the Iowa Democrats who stood up for equality this week.