Bill Anderson will soon resign from the Iowa Senate and from U.S. Representative Steve King’s district office to become executive director of the Cherokee Area Economic Development Corporation, he told the Sioux City Journal‘s Bret Hayworth today. “I want to do something else and broaden my horizons,” he explained. He will officially step down in time for Governor Kim Reynolds to set a special election before the legislature reconvenes in January.

Ordinarily, a young lawmaker wouldn’t resign in the middle of his second term, soon after his party gained majority status. But Anderson didn’t seem like the happiest camper at the statehouse. For reasons that remain unclear, he supported an amendment opposed by leadership, which would have made the workers’ compensation bill Anderson had introduced slightly less bad for people suffering shoulder injuries.

He also missed quite a few votes during this year’s legislative session. Those factors may have prompted Senate Majority Leader Bill Dix to remove Anderson as Commerce Committee chair in May. (Neither Anderson nor Senate leaders ever responded to my requests for comment.)

Iowa Senate district 3 covers most of Plymouth County and a large area of Woodbury County, including neighborhoods on the south side of Sioux City. I enclose a detailed map below. Though anything can happen in a low-turnout special election, the GOP will be heavily favored to hold this seat, where voters favored Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton by 68.12 percent to 27.32 percent last November. According to the latest figures from the Secretary of State’s office, Senate district 3 contains just 8,741 active registered Democrats, 17,635 Republicans, and 13,035 no-party voters.