OPINION:
Last week, President Trump awarded Sen. Orrin Hatch, the longest-serving Senate Republican ever, the Medal of Freedom. In doing so, Mr. Trump emphasized the high personal regard in which he holds Mr. Hatch, but the medal was deserved not just because the president likes the senator, but because Orrin Hatch deserves recognition as a Senate great at the end of a distinguished career.
Almost a quarter century ago, F. Clifton White, the architect of the rise of conservatives to power in the Republican Party and one of the most talented political technicians ever, wrote of the growing public hostility to politics and politicians. Politics, he wrote, was once considered a “noble calling,” but “that world is largely past … the U.S. system of government is not working as well now as it once did; it is not working in the manner our forefathers intended it to work.”
To say that things have gotten worse in the 20 or so years since White penned that lament is an understatement. It is always a mistake to assume that the men and women who led the nation in the past were more intelligent, reasonable and dedicated to actually making government work than our contemporaries; there were rogues and mountebanks to be found in the halls of Congress then as there are today. Still, the men and women White admired seem to be a vanishing breed.
One of them, Orrin Hatch of Utah, is retiring this year after serving in the Senate for 42 long years during which he has chaired and served as ranking Republican of three of the most important committees in the Senate; the Judiciary, Labor and Finance Committees. He has fought for the confirmation of conservative judicial nominees, written a major revision of the tax code and successfully fought off big labor’s attempts to gut the nation’s labor laws. He ran briefly for president in 2000, but not so secretly coveted a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court for decades. By the time a president was ready to give such an appointment serious consideration his age dictated a search for a younger nominee.
Mr. Hatch, a Mormon and successful attorney, moved to Utah from Pennsylvania in the late ’60s. He played a major role in Ronald Reagan’s 1976 effort to wrest the Republican presidential nomination from President Gerald Ford and when that race ended, declared himself a candidate for the Senate. In a multi-candidate field his Reaganite credentials made all the difference; he won the nomination and went on to defeat three-term incumbent Democrat Frank Moss in the general.
The late Lyn Nofziger and I played a minor role in Mr. Hatch’s primary campaign that year. Utah was Reagan country and a Reagan endorsement would give Mr. Hatch a real leg up on his opponents. The governor and future president was vacationing with his wife in Mexico when Mr. Hatch’s request came in and another Reagan aide, Mike Deaver, said the governor would not provide the requested endorsement because he had a firm policy against getting involved in primaries.
Nofziger and I went nuts. We argued to Deaver and ultimately to Reagan that he had just asked Republicans to risk their political careers by siding with him against an incumbent president of his own party and suggested as loudly as we could that it would be hypocritical and unfair to deny Mr. Hatch the support he had asked Mr. Hatch to give him. Mr. Hatch got the endorsement and the nomination.
He opposed the Equal Rights Amendment and was a consistent champion of those fighting for the rights of the unborn. In the ’80s and since he has been a staunch advocate of a Balanced Budget Amendment and foe of expensive and wasteful government spending. When judicial appointees from Robert Bork to Brett Kavanaugh have run into the leftist buzz saw, he’s always had their back.
There have been times when I’ve disagreed with him. He was a major architect and Senate supporter of the USA Patriot Act after 9/11 and some of his health care proposals while reflecting an admirable compassion were problematic in their application. He never let those disagreements with me or anyone else on the left or right undermine his friendships or ability to work with people with whom he sometimes disagreed. That is unusual in today’s political world; even more unusual than when White sensed ideological and partisan tribalism as a threat to good government.
Orrin Hatch’s performance over 42 years as a senator, justified that Reagan endorsement. He is a conservative in the Reagan tradition, which is to say that he is both a gentleman who could work across party lines without forgetting who he was or abandoning his core principles. Orrin Hatch is one of the most decent men to be found in that once noble calling and will be missed.
• David A. Keene is an editor at large for The Washington Times.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.