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SALT LAKE CITY — He may have spent the majority of the last 40 years in Washington, D.C., but Senator Orrin Hatch hasn’t forgotten Utah and who he represents.
In his office inside the Hart Senate Office Building hangs a deeply personal painting of home. Painted by his second cousin, landscape artist Valoy Eaton, it portrays Hatch’s ancestors crossing the “crick” in the Uintah Basin, an area of Utah founded by the senator’s great-grandfather Jeremiah Hatch.
“The big one back there is my great-grandfather and grandfather crossing Ashley Creek. It reminds me that I have a heritage that’s a pioneer heritage that I can’t let down,” he said as he took KSL reporters on a tour. “I’ve got to keep the pioneer work going and I think I have been a pioneer here. We’ve fought through a lot of really tough problems and won a lot of battles for Utah that wouldn’t have been won had we not been here.”
Senator Hatch has been a Utah senator for 40 years— 40 years and 11 days, to be exact, making him the longest serving Republican senator in history. The previous record set by Alaska Senator Ted Stevens was 40 years and 10 days. It’s a milestone the Senator never mentioned to reporters in their time with him, but it’s one that can't be ignored.
Senator Hatch’s almost life-long service is to some a sign of what’s wrong in Washington, D.C. He said he knows the sentiment is out there that he should call it quits, but he also knows how the senate works.
“People say, 'Well, why have you been there so long?’" Hatch said. "Well, because I know what I’m doing! I know that I do things that I don’t believe other people can do very well.”
The Senator’s record speaks for itself. In his tenure, he’s passed more than 750 bills, dozens more than the next senator on the list. In the last two years alone, Hatch passed 45 bills that made it to President Obama's desk and were signed into law. Most other Senators passed fewer than 10.
“It helps to have been here a while,” Hatch said.
Seniority in the Senate is something most Washington outsiders may not see the importance of.
“It makes all the difference in the world,” said Nevada Republican Senator Dean Heller. “Senator Hatch is a Westerner. Some of us other Westerners that work all the time to get Western issues to the front, it’s his seniority that makes a big difference.”
“He is somebody who is really the mature, experienced, respected voice throughout the entire Senate,” added Wyoming Republican Senator John Barrasso.
At the age of 82, Hatch keeps up a rigorous schedule. His day starts at 4:30 a.m. with a morning workout before being picked up by his security detail for the commute to the Capitol complex. As Senate President Pro Tempore, Hatch sits third in line for the presidency and is always accompanied by the Secret Service.
The Senator arrives at the office at 7:30 a.m. sharp and on the day KSL TV reporters were with him, he had more than 14 meetings on his agenda; the biggest being the first confirmation hearing for President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet picks. Hatch and his Senate Judiciary Committee colleagues spent more than three and a half hours questioning fellow Senator Jeff Sessions during the morning session of the hearing.
There’s no break from politics for lunch. The Republicans eat and meet together mid-afternoon before heading back to their various committees. The Sessions hearing went on for another three hours in the afternoon before Hatch had to leave to meet with another Trump nominee, Bob Lighthizer, who had been tapped as a U.S. trade representative.
It was nearly 6 p.m. before the Senator had time to stop and sit down for an interview. In the office reserved for the Senate Pro Tempore, Hatch was candid and frank about his future.
“I think if you asked the average Utahn they’d say, ‘You ought to retire,’ because that’s just the way people think,” he said. “Most people don’t want to stay this long and I’ve got to admit, I haven’t particularly wanted to either, except this has been my life, and there’s a real question, you know, 'What should I do?'”
Back in 2012, Hatch insisted he would not run for an 8th term but reports started surfacing in the fall of 2016 that the Senator might be changing his mind. He has the support of many fellow republicans, though it’s clear he has not yet made a decision either way.
“That’s something I’m working on right now,” he said, “and I don’t know quite what to do because I don’t want to let my state down. I don’t want to let my church down. I don’t want to let my family down or your family. I know what I can do. I know that it’s going to take. If they’re lucky, it’s going to take others years and years to be able to do a fraction of what I do right now, and I’m not bragging about it, I’m just saying that that’s reality.”
Senator Hatch gave no timeline for a decision. His focus right now is confirming the incoming president’s nominees and joining the rest of the GOP in what’s become the first item of business for the 115th Congress: repealing Obamacare.
The day with Hatch ended more than 12 hours after it began. A long day for the young, but a normal day for the Senator who is anything but.
“I really feel indebted to the people of Utah for sticking with me and for caring for me enough to be their senator,” he said. “I don’t ever want to let them down and I won’t. As long as I’m here, and look, if I can’t do this job, I will retire. There’s no question. But I can do it.”
