President Biden on Sunday memorialized former Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, who died Saturday at age 88, as both a “sharp-elbowed” Republican and a “gentle soul” of deep faith who wrote songs and worked to lift the vulnerable through major legislation.
“Orrin Hatch once shared in an interview that he had a soft side, and he had a tough side. To serve with Orrin, as I did for over three decades, was to see — and appreciate — both,” Mr. Biden said.
The president, a former longtime senator from Delaware, said Mr. Hatch was a fighter from the Pittsburgh area “who never humored a bully, or shied from a challenge” before becoming the first member of his family to graduate from college.
Mr. Biden said Mr. Hatch built a successful law practice and, as a senator, “sprinted from meeting to meeting because there was so much to do — indeed, when Senator Hatch retired, he had sponsored or co-sponsored more legislation than any senator at the time.”
The president hailed Mr. Hatch, the longest-serving Republican senator in U.S. history after his tenure from 1977 to 2019, for his efforts to pass the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Children’s Health Insurance Program.
Mr. Biden also thanked the senator for supporting his cancer moonshot initiative.
SEE ALSO: Democrat sounds alarm on Biden’s decision to lift Title 42
“The greatest perk one has as a senator was access to people with serious minds, a serious sense of purpose, and who cared about something. That was Orrin,” Mr. Biden said. “He was, quite simply, an American original.”
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.