NASHVILLE (AP) — A bill that would name a Nashville post office after a late former state senator is headed to President Joe Biden's desk.

In a news release Thursday, Democratic U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper said the proposal dedicated to former Sen. Thelma Harper passed the House earlier this year and cleared the Senate this week.

Cooper says he expects Biden to sign the bill soon.

Cooper, a Nashville Democrat, says the entire Tennessee delegation joined him in introducing the bill in the fall of 2021.

Harper was a Nashville Democrat who became the first first African-American woman elected to the state Senate.

Harper became a senator in 1989 and was first elected to her seat in 1991. She became the longest-serving female senator in Tennessee before she decided not to seek reelection in 2018. Harper died in April 2021 at the age of 80.