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The Senate has voted to approve the D.C. House Voting Rights Act, 61-37. The only vote that changed from Tuesday’s cloture vote was that of Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski (R).

This is a very big day for D.C. voting rights. That the bill has passed the Senate makes it almost certain that it will now pass the House and eventually end up on President Obama’s desk for his signature. Today’s vote marks the first voting rights measure to pass the Senate since 1978.

“This is a historic moment for DC Vote and all who have worked on this issue,” said Ilir Zherka, DC Vote Executive Director. “Through the efforts of our coalition, volunteers, donors and supporters across the nation and world – we did it.”

The bill would grant the District a single voting member in the U.S. House, along with an additional seat that would at first go to Utah, and after the 2010 Census would then be allocated to whichever state’s population has grown the most.

The victory was surely somewhat bittersweet for the D.C. government, however, as just before voting on the bill, the Senate added an amendment which repeals the District’s gun registration laws.

D.C. Wire is citing “proponents of the bill” who said they hoped the gun amendment could be removed during negotiations between the House and the Senate, since the two bills are now quite different from one another.

Two other amendments were also added to the bill before it was approved. Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) successfully added language that would ban the re-adoption of the so-called Fairness Doctrine, a law that was originally struck down during the Reagan administration which required broadcasters to provide “balanced” coverage of controversial issues. At the same time, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) attached a rival amendment which called on the FCC to encourage “diverse media ownership” and included language that would preserve regulations mandating a certain amount of public interest programming on the part of broadcasters.