The For the People Act, a package of voting rights, campaign finance, redistricting and ethics reforms, took the next step toward a Senate floor vote after the Senate Rules Committee debated and amended the bill on Tuesday amid universal opposition from Senate Republicans .

The bill, which passed the House on a near party-line vote in March, would set a national floor for elections by mandating states implement election reforms including early voting, no-excuse absentee ballots, and automatic and same-day voter registration. It would also restore voting rights to ex-felons while making it harder to purge voter rolls, among many other things.

Debate over it comes as Republican-run states, including Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Montana and Texas, are enacting laws to make it harder to vote. These voter restriction laws come in response to former President Donald Trump s lie that he did not lose the November presidential election, a falsehood that inspired the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol aimed at disrupting the peaceful transfer of power.

The stakes could not be higher, said Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), chair of the rules committee and a lead sponsor of the bill. We need to take these threats to our democracy head on with immediate action to restore Americans confidence in our political system.

The final vote was tied, 9-9, to advance the bill out of the committee, which is evenly split between Democrats and Republicans, with Republicans remaining universally opposed to the bill.

Legislation usually requires a majority committee vote to be sent on to the Senate floor, but under the rules negotiated after Democrats won a 50-seat majority in January, the bill can be discharged from committee by a simple majority vote on the floor of the Senate, where Vice President Kamala Harris can break ties.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) promised a floor vote on the bill and declared that everything is on the table, including changing the Senates filibuster rules in order to pass the bill in order to override the growing state-level voter restrictions.

These laws carry the stench of oppression, the smell of bigotry, Schumer said of the Republican-backed state laws. Are you going to stamp it out, or are you going to allow it to be spread? I plead with my Republican colleagues: Think twice.