Roll Call's Tory Newmeyer reports that House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer has backed off his earlier promises to bring the D.C. House Voting Right Act to the chamber's floor.

Reports Newmeyer:

"As a result of there not being a consensus, I don’t think we’re going to be able to move the bill at this point in time,” Hoyer told reporters at his weekly briefing....Hoyer had originally set Memorial Day as his target for passing the D.C. voting bill. Before the break for that holiday, he acknowledged the difficulty in reaching a breakthrough but pledged action this year. “It is going to happen,” he said. He declined to repeat the prediction on Tuesday.

Call this one more step toward oblivion for the DCHVRA. Without a 180-degree turn by Eleanor Holmes Norton and others on a possible gun amendment compromise, this thing looks dead in the water.

But, says one wag, "Things are still in the works."

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer just appeared on WAMU-FM's Politics Hour to discuss the future of the D.C. House Voting Rights Act.

Hoyer acknowledged that "we've been distracted by the gun issue and a couple of other issues that haven't gotten as much publicity" but said he's been "talking to the mayor, talking to Vince Gray, talking to members of the city council...trying to get this done."

DCist's Sommer Mathis asked Hoyer whether he saw a way forward. "Yes, there is," he replied. "I don't want to go deeply." He did note the possibility of "taking the gun thing then getting the vote, then dealing with the gun issue as we go along"---though he said "that is not my preference."

In response to question from Tom Sherwood of WRC-TV, Hoyer said there was no "drop dead deadline" for getting the bill passed. "I don't expect we'll get past May and not get it done," he said. "Ultimately, we're going to create a sense of how we can do this."

Sherwood asked if it would help if President Barack Obama spoke out on the issue. Said Hoyer, "We're talking to the administration about that, and we're getting a read on what the city wants to do about that and what [Eleanor Holmes Norton] wants to do about that."