Vermont Senator, Patrick Leahy, has urged the Republican-led Senate to move on the new voting rights act. On Friday, the Democrat-led House of Representatives voted on the Voting Rights Advancement Act.

The legislation restores all the protections of the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act. In 2013, a Supreme Court ruling made it possible for states to enact laws that encourage voter suppression.

WCAX reported that:

Leahy said that 54 years after the voting rights act, voter suppression should be left in the history books, but it is alive and well.

“Maybe the water cannons, the clubs, the police dogs may have been replaced but they’ve been replaced by bogus ID requirements, the purging of voter rolls, the changing of voter places. The tactics may have evolved but the goal– don’t forget the goal: state-sponsored, systematic disenfranchisement– remains the same,” said Leahy, D-Vermont.

Leahy urged Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to bring the bill up in the Senate, where he says it would pass.