Republican Senator Orrin Hatch is really proud of the fact that The Salt Lake Tribune named him “Utahn of the Year,” tweeting that he’s “grateful for this great Christmas honor.” Sure enough, the grandiose cover all but screams “elder statesman.” If only he’d bothered to flip past the front page and read the editorial itself:
The selection of Sen. Orrin G. Hatch as the 2017 Utahn of the Year has little to do with the fact that, after 42 years, he is the longest-serving Republican senator in U.S. history, that he has been a senator from Utah longer than three-fifths of the state’s population has been alive. It has everything to do with recognizing:
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Hatch’s part in the dramatic dismantling of the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments.
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His role as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee in passing a major overhaul of the nation’s tax code.
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His utter lack of integrity that rises from his unquenchable thirst for power.
“It would be good for Utah if Hatch,” the editorial board continued, “having finally caught the Great White Whale of tax reform, were to call it a career. If he doesn’t, the voters should end it for him.” Columnist Cristian Farias: “Reminds me of when Orrin Hatch published an op-ed saying he was unmoved after meeting Merrick Garland before meeting actually happened.”
According to the International Business Times, Hatch is one of the Republican senators who stand to personally profit from Congress’s recent looting of America:
When the U.S. Senate took up the final tax bill Tuesday, more than one-quarter of all GOP senators were voting on a bill that includes a special provision that could give them a new tax cut through their real estate shell companies, according to federal records reviewed by International Business Times.
The provision was not in the original bill passed by the Senate on Dec. 1. It was embedded in the final bill by Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, who is among the lawmakers that stand to personally benefit from the provision.
The editorial board highlights his role in passing the tax heist, but also gives emphasis to Hatch’s role in Donald Trump’s despicable chopping of two national monuments in Utah:
As has been argued in this space before, the presidential decision to cut the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in half and to slash the size of the brand new Bears Ears National Monument by some 90 percent has no constitutional, legal or environmental logic.
To all appearances — appearances promoted by Hatch — this anti-environmental, anti-Native American and, yes, anti-business decommissioning of national monuments was basically a political favor the White House did for Hatch. A favor done in return for Hatch’s support of the president generally and of his tax reform plan in particular.
Regarding Hatch’s brazen lie that he would not run for re-election in 2018, the editorial board calls on him to take a hike, just not the tax kind:
The last time the senator was up for re-election, in 2012, he promised that it would be his last campaign. That was enough for many likely successors, of both parties, to stand down, to let the elder statesman have his victory tour and to prepare to run for an open seat in 2018.
Clearly, it was a lie. Over the years, Hatch stared down a generation or two of highly qualified political leaders who were fully qualified to take his place, Hatch is now moving to run for another term—it would be his eighth—in the Senate. Once again, Hatch has moved to freeze the field to make it nigh unto impossible for any number of would-be senators to so much as mount a credible challenge. That’s not only not fair to all of those who were passed over. It is basically a theft from the Utah electorate.
One thing the editorial failed to mention, though, is the complete lack of leadership from Hatch when it comes to DACA recipients. Hatch was a main cosponsor of the original DREAM Act way back in 2001, but today he’s MIA. And speaking of a new generation of Utah leaders, even Rep. Mia Love, his Republican colleague in Congress, issued a letter calling on House Speaker Paul Ryan to protect DACA recipients as soon as possible:
“It is crucial that we bring a reasonable solution to the House floor,” Love said, “so we can provide certainty to this Utah population that contributes to our communities and growing economy.”
You gotta wonder how many other things come across Hatch’s desk that he clearly doesn’t read, how often he’s done this in the past, and how much worse it could be in yet another term where Trump could still be at the helm. Hatch hasn’t even bothered to delete his tweet, as of publishing time. Best to listen to the editorial board, senator, and just “call it a career.”