The Senate on Wednesday took its first step toward an anticipated showdown over the chambers filibuster rules as the Senate Rules & Administration Committee held the first hearing on a major voting rights, campaign finance, gerrymandering and ethics reform legislative package.

The For The People Act is the top legislative priority of congressional Democrats , and was introduced as the first bill in both the House and Senate. Its expansion of voting rights is touted as the most sweeping expansion on the issue since the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The House passed the bill early this month , with one Democrat joining all Republicans in voting no.

But in the Senate, Democrats are up against Republicans who insist that voting problems including the slew of restrictions being pushed at the state level dont exist at all. Without reform to the filibuster, a procedure that lets senators block legislation that holds less than 60 supporters, it doesnt stand a chance.

States are not engaging in trying to suppress voters whatsoever, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said in testimony. This is a solution in search of a problem.

Thats blatantly false. Republican-led state legislatures have passed numerous voting restrictions over the past decade, and a record number of new restrictions are currently under consideration.

Republicans in state legislatures have introduced 253-plus bills to restrict voting access. Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), the committees ranking member, claimed the threat of voter restrictions posed by these bills was a false narrative in my view because they have not all passed yet. However, they are all in the works.

The push to expand voting rights also comes on the heels of the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, which was fomented by former President Donald Trump and other Republican officials lying about nonexistent election fraud. There are pending voting restrictions in states that Trump falsely claimed he won, including Arizona and Georgia.

Democrats likened these restrictions to past efforts to keep Black people and other marginalized groups from voting.

Our country has come a long way supposedly since African-Americans were forced to guess the number of jelly beans in a jar in order to vote, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in testimony. But some of these voter suppression laws in Georgia and other Republican states smack of Jim Crow rearing its ugly head once again.