The Florida State Capitol, where a vote on D.C. statehood will not be held any time soon. (Photo by Jason Famularo

So much for the Sunshine State being the next beacon of hope for the campaign to get statehouses around the country to endorse the notion of making the District of Columbia the 51st state.

The Post’s Tim Craig reported earlier that a bill endorsing statehood in Florida House of Representatives Federal Affairs Subcommittee has been scuttled. A debate on the bill was cancelled due to the end of Florida’s legislative session in early March. Following their somewhat futile trip to New Hampshire to lobby lawmakers there on statehood, D.C. officials had hoped to go to Tallahassee and do the same.

The Florida bill’s sponsor, State Rep. Alan Williams, a Democrat who represents Tallahassee and its suburbs, told DCist he carried the statehood torch because he’d like to see that “seat of power for our country has the same representation that every other city and town has.”

Williams also said that a push from students at Florida State University and Florida A&M University, both of which are in his district, helped convince him to take the cause up.

“When you look at the population [of D.C.],” he said, “I think we’ve come too far as a country and as a democracy not to give that kind of representation to that group of people.”

Florida’s legislature, which is a part-time body, does not reconvene until November. At that point, Williams intends to re-file his bill, he said.

“I think the benefit is we all enjoy the ability to have representation, and we should want that same level of representation and equity with our sisters and brothers in Washington, D.C.,” he said.

With Florida sidelined, the next target on the statehood tour is Delaware, said David Meadows, spokesman for Councilmember Michael A. Brown (I-At Large), who is spearheading the effort. Perhaps the First State, where a pair of legislators have introduced a measure endorsing statehood, will give its stamp to making D.C. the 51st.

But for now, anyone who planned on going to the panhandle to lobby for statehood ought to put away the beach gear. It’s onward to Dover.