The House has abandoned plans to take up legislation giving residents of the District of Columbia a vote in Congress that has been denied them for over two centuries.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said he was "profoundly disappointed" that the House, which had planned to consider the voting rights bill this week, will probably not take it up this year.

The Maryland Democrat said a major problem was the linkage of the D.C. voting rights bill to a provision that would have effectively eliminated the District's tough gun control laws. The measure would have given the District's 600,000 residents a House vote and would have temporarily given Republican-leaning Utah a new at-large seat, expanding the size of the House from 435 to 437 members.