WASHINGTON — After more than a decade of planning and millions spent to build a memorial near the National Mall honoring the late President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a key lawmaker who has helped oversee the project from the start is stepping away.

Kansas Sen. Jerry Moran resigned from the Eisenhower Memorial Commission before the panel voted Wednesday to move forward with a design by architect Frank Gehry after years of controversy.

Moran quietly submitted his resignation last week after concluding paying homage to Ike’s home state of Kansas in the design has become a stumbling block for Gehry’s concept for the memorial park, a spokesman for the senator said.

Gehry proposed a memorial park with statues of Ike as president and as World War II general. A large metal tapestry would depict the Kansas landscape of Eisenhower’s boyhood home.

Eisenhower’s family has opposed the tapestry concept and called for a simpler design. Critics have mounted a campaign against the design that has delayed the project for years.

Moran wants the memorial to be built and has advocated for Kansas to have a presence in the design, spokesman Garrette Silverman said. But he decided that might be a hindrance to completing the memorial.

“Sen. Moran’s ongoing support for the inclusion of Kansas has led him to conclude that this stance is blocking a memorial to President Eisenhower from completion,” Silverman said in an e-mail. “He appreciates the dedication of the Eisenhower Commission staff in seeing that this memorial becomes a reality and hopes an Eisenhower Memorial is completed soon.”