Under the bill, lynching would be punishable by a sentence of up to life in prison. The measure would not preclude murder charges that can already be brought under existing law.

Image Representative Leonidas Dyer of Missouri sponsored an anti-lynching bill that was thwarted by Southern Democrats in the 1920s. Credit... Office of the Clerk, U.S. House of Representatives

“In the course of a crime there can be multiple charges,” Mr. Booker said in a phone interview. “This bill will make lynching another charge on top of murder.”

Sixteen other senators, including Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont; Kirsten Gillibrand, a New York Democrat; and Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, have signed on as co-sponsors. The bill also has the support of the majority leader, Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky.

“I thought we did that many years ago,” Mr. McConnell said this month in an interview on Sirius XM. “I hadn’t thought about it, I thought that was done back during L.B.J. or some period like that,” he said.

“If we need one at the federal level, I certainly will support it,” he said.

The bill comes nearly 100 years after Leonidas Dyer, a United States representative from Missouri, introduced anti-lynching legislation. In 2005 the Senate agreed to apologize to the victims and the descendants of the victims of lynching, for its failure to enact anti-lynching legislation.