WASHINGTON, D.C. ? The 1965 Voting Rights Act, which opened voting booths to millions of black Americans, won a 25-year extension from Congress on Thursday as Republicans sought to improve their standing with minorities before the fall election.

The legislation, approved 98-0 by the Senate after last week’s overwhelming House passage, now goes to President Bush, who told the NAACP earlier in the day that he looked forward to signing it.

A centerpiece of the 1960s civil rights movement, the law ended poll taxes, literacy tests and other election devices that had been used for decades to keep blacks from voting.

The House passed the bill last week 390-33 with opposition mostly from Southern lawmakers who objected to renewing a law that requires their states to receive Justice Department approval before changing any voting rules – punishment, they said, for racist practices decades in the past.