Missouri House Speaker John Diehl (R) “is resigning from both his leadership position and his legislative seat after acknowledging that he sent sexually charged text messages to a Capitol intern,” the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports.

The Kansas City Star, which broke the story, said Diehl’s “survival, or ouster, as speaker was more practically a matter for the overwhelming Republican majority. Those lawmakers met in a party caucus late Wednesday, a meeting that ended with neither a vote of confidence nor a consensus that the 49-year-old should go. That dynamic seemed to shift overnight and through Thursday morning, culminating with Diehl’s resignation on Thursday afternoon.”

Text messages obtained by the Kansas City Star “reveal a sexually charged relationship between House Speaker John Diehl and a college freshman in a Missouri Capitol internship program that shut down abruptly last month.”

“The conversations unveil a flirty rapport and suggest an intimacy between arguably the state’s most influential lawmaker and a young woman taking some pleasure in a secret association.”

“Diehl initially declined to comment. But about six hours after the story was posted online Wednesday morning, he issued a statement admitting the relationship.”