Ted Poe: “I think it's well said, as our majority leader pointed out, that in the Declaration of Independence, the basis for who…”

“I think it's well said, as our majority leader pointed out, that in the Declaration of Independence, the basis for who we are, states "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights." In other words, we get our rights from the Almighty. We don't get our rights from government or from others or from the king. We get our rights because we get them from the Almighty. And as it states in the Declaration of Independence, that governments are instituted to secure those rights. And first it was the 15th Amendment, and yet there needed to be more legislation. Because of the events that occurred on Bloody Sunday, ironically a President from the South signed the Civil Rights Act of 1965, President Lyndon Baines Johnson from Texas. This was a bipartisan piece of legislation in that in this House of Representatives, the majority of the Democrats, 217, and the majority of the Republicans, 111, voted for this legislation with about 20 percent or less in both parties voting against it. Bipartisan legislation passed with a vast majority of both the Republicans and the Democrats, a sign that bipartisanship on important pieces of legislation is necessary, and it is effective.”