All 50 Senate Republicans voted Tuesday to block debate on a sweeping reform bill covering voting rights, campaign finance, redistricting and government ethics that is the priority of congressional Democrats .

The For the People Act was introduced as the first bill by Democrats in both the House and the Senate after they won control of both chambers in the 2020 election. It passed the House on a party-line vote in March with one Democrat voting no. But passage in the Senate was precarious as Democrats hold just 50 seats and the chambers rules allow the minority Republicans to block any bill that cant receive 60 votes.

Although all 50 Democrats ultimately voted to move forward with the bill, the GOP filibuster prevailed. Vice President Kamala Harris , who has been tasked with voting rights protection and expansion efforts, presided over the vote.

This is one of the most critical issues the U.S. Congress could take up, which is about the fundamental right to vote in our country, Harris said after the vote. This fight is not over.

The GOP-led filibuster tees up a question for the Senate Democratic caucus: Will it change the chambers filibuster rules to allow the bill to pass with a simple majority? Or will a small group of Senate Democrats choose to protect the filibuster over the right to vote in states run by Republicans?

This is an urgent question to voting rights proponents who see the bill as the antidote to a wave of voter suppression bills. These bills were passed by Republican state legislatures to fulfill the wishes of ex-President Donald Trump , who falsely claimed that fraud cost him the 2020 election and tried to get all votes cast in majority-Black precincts in key swing states invalidated.

Just before the vote, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) urged his Republican colleagues to stand up to Trump and vote to at least debate the bill to protect voting rights.

Are we going to let the most dishonest president in history continue to poison our democracy from the inside? Schumer said. Or will we stand up to defend what generations of Americans have organized, marched, fought and died for: the sacred, sacred right to vote?

The For the People Act, as it currently exists, would overturn many of the rollbacks to voter access contained in recent GOP-backed election laws by instituting a national floor for rules regarding early, absentee and in-person voting and voter registration. These provisions were originally introduced as legislation written by the late civil rights leader and Georgia congressman John Lewis (D). The bill, a combination of reform proposals developed over the past 15 years, would also limit partisan gerrymandering, create a voluntary public campaign financing system for congressional elections, ban undisclosed dark money, increase election cybersecurity and enhance foreign lobbying regulations, among many other things.