The end of a presidency tends to bring a rush of last-minute monument making, and Joe Biden’s was no different. In his final week in office, he designated nearly 850,000 acres of federal land in California as two new national monuments.

Biden, headlines noted, had protected more land than any president in history — some 674 million acres. But amid all the fanfare, another piece of news out of the White House passed with little notice: the signing of legislation allowing a monument dedicated to American women to be built on the National Mall.

When completed, the Women’s Suffrage National Monument will be the first on the Mall honoring women and their history. But it could also very well be the last, given a 2003 law banning new monuments there.

The site of the suffrage memorial has yet to be determined. And there is no design yet. But that its backers won a rare exception illustrates the complexities of navigating the intricate politics surrounding the most symbolically freighted patch of civic real estate in America.

Despite support from two presidents, all six living first ladies and a bipartisan array of legislators, the project met with roadblocks and behind-the-scenes opposition. Success came only in the final hours of the 118th Congress — when failure would have meant having to start all over again.

It wasn’t quite as dramatic as the photo-finish of the 19th Amendment, which cleared the final hurdle in 1920 after a 24-year-old Tennessee state legislator had a last-minute change of heart after receiving a letter from his mother urging him to “be a good boy” and support women’s suffrage.