Rep. Bill Orton, D-Utah, announced Monday that he's won a different kind of campaign - he's getting married.
Orton, 45, who was attacked unsuccessfully in both his previous House campaigns for being a bachelor who might not understand family values, said he and Jacquelyn Massey from Gadsden, Ala., plan to marry July 2.It will be the first marriage for both.
"It will be somewhere in Utah, but we don't want to say where," Orton said Monday. "We want it to be a private, family affair."
It's the second big step the couple has taken in the past few weeks. Orton also baptized Massey into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints two weeks ago.
Orton said their courtship began when he noticed Massey, an associate director of the National Association of Federal Credit Unions and a former House Banking Committee staffer, in Washington, D.C.
"I asked a friend who she was," he said. "I had a friend who knew her roommate. But it took me several months to get up the courage to ask her to lunch. We've been dating since last September."
Orton has since brought Massey to several events in Utah - including the Senator's Ski Cup and general conference.
Orton said he introduced Massey to the church. "But she contacted the missionaries without me knowing about it. They had taught her the first few discussions (about church beliefs), and then she thought she ought to involve me with it," he said.
That culminated in her baptism two weeks ago with Orton performing the ordinance. He said the two plan to solemnize their marriage in an LDS temple in a year.
The couple will make their homes in Sundance, Utah, and Washington, D.C.