With it increasingly unlikely that the District of Columbia House Voting Rights Act will hit the Senate floor before the August recess, D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D) told supporters Wednesday a delay would not harm the measure’s chances for passage. [IMGCAP(1)]

Following a morning meeting with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Wednesday, Norton said the bill still has a strong chance to pass, despite the fact that a hefty Senate schedule likely will keep it from the floor before the break.

“Harry Reid has long supported our rights and he’s a man of his word,” Norton said. “His job is to find room amidst a crowded backlog of bills that must pass and our job is to keep pushing for floor time,” Norton said.

Advocates for the bill announced Tuesday they expect to have the 60 votes necessary to overcome an expected filibuster challenge, and they pushed Reid to schedule a floor vote before recess.

There is a slight chance that gaps in Senate scheduling could allow the bill to come to the floor next week, Norton said.

“If we do not get to the Senate floor next week, we will use the August recess to make a September floor vote all but inevitable,” Norton said.

The compromise measure would grant Democratic-leaning D.C. a full seat in the House while also giving one to largely Republican Utah. A similar version passed the House in April.

Library’s Addition. At a signing ceremony this evening at the Library of Congress, David Packard, president of the Packard Humanities Institute, will officially transfer the new 415,000-square-foot Packard Campus for Audio-Visual Conservation to Congress and the LOC.

Also known throughout its construction as the National Audio-Visual Conservation Center, the $150 million facility was made possible by one of the largest-ever private gifts in the history of the Library. The new facility was designed to be a state-of-the-art storage site for the Library’s moving picture and recorded sound collections.

Located in Culpepper, Va., the center received its certificate of occupancy earlier this year and most of the 5.7 million items that will eventually be housed onsite have already been relocated from facilities spread across four states and the District of Columbia.

— Elizabeth Brotherton and John McArdle