Bipartisan mental health legislation by Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., is shaping up as one of the few measures that may pass the Senate in an election year in which Congress continues to be bitterly divided.

Murphy’s Mental Health Reform Act of 2016 won the blessing of Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee Chairman Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., and the committee’s senior Democrat, Sen. Patty Murray. On Wednesday, the committee (of which Murphy is a member) approved the bill and sent it to the Senate floor.

“This is an important bill — this is going to make a difference, and I’m proud of the process that we went through in bringing together just a really impressive cross section of the mental health advocacy community,’’ Murphy said at the committee vote. “In Connecticut, we went through a long process of holding over a dozen roundtables and town halls to solicit feedback.’’

Improving the mental health system is one outgrowth of the rash of mass-shootings — including Newtown — about which Democrats and Republicans in Congress can agree.

The bill would go a long way toward putting mental health care on equal footing with physical health care. It would establish grant programs for early intervention as well as biomedical research.

But the Senate version does not include controversial Assisted Outpatient Treatment, under which mental patients could fall under judicial supervision if they refuse treatment or medications. The House version of the bill includes such a provision.