On January 4, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson called on Congress to eliminate the nation’s forty-year-old national origins quota system as the basis for immigration and pass an immigration law “based on the work a man can do and not where he was born or how he spells his name.” An administration-backed bill, S. 500, was introduced by Senator Philip A. Hart (D-MI), and on February 10, the Subcommittee on Immigration and Naturalization of the Committee on the Judiciary began hearings on the bill. In the opening statement of those hearings, Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA) whose brother, President John F. Kennedy, had backed similar legislation, spoke passionately of the need for an immigration policy based on “the principle of equality and fair play for the people of all nations.”