SALT LAKE CITY — Sen. Orrin Hatch faced 18-year incumbent Frank Moss during his first U.S. Senate election over four decades ago.

His slogan during the campaign was, “What do you call a Senator who’s served in office for 18 years? You call him home,” NPR reported.

Seven terms later, Hatch has sponsored or co-sponsored almost 6,000 bills as the longest-serving Republican senator in U.S. history.

He is also the longest-serving U.S. senator in Utah’s history as well as the sixth longest-serving senator in American history.

Here is a non-comprehensive, non-authoritative, non-chronological list of some noteworthy (occasionally fun and generally serious) aspects of Hatch’s long service in the Senate:

1. The man, the myth, the meme

During a tense Senate Judiciary Committee meeting, Hatch removed a pair of glasses he wasn’t actually wearing and nonchalantly placed them next to him. The clip of the “invisible glasses” quickly went viral and became a meme, branding Hatch into the fabric of the internet culture cosmos.

Hatch’s office even got in on the fun, replying to the tweet that originally caused the video to go viral.

Whoever runs Hatch’s social accounts also likes to poke fun of the 84-year-old senator’s age or declare his love for Utah icon Chuck-A-Rama (though maybe that’s when Hatch tweets himself).

2. The Music Man

Hatch’s Twitter bio touts the senator as a “writer of songs and laws.” And it’s true.

Hatch co-authored the song “Everything and More” by Billy Gilman and composed dozens of songs with Latter-day Saint songwriter Janice Kapp Perry. They released such classics as “America Rocks!” and “The Answer’s Not in Washington.”

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One of his songs even made it in as background music in an “Ocean’s 12” scene set in Utah.

In October, the senator stood next to Kid Rock and Beach Boys’ Mike Love as President Donald Trump signed Hatch’s bill that was meant to help songwriters get paid fair value for their songs.

3. DREAM

In 2001, Hatch sponsored the DREAM Act — a bill that would provide a pathway to citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants who were children when their parents arrived in the U.S. The bill has been reintroduced several times but failed to pass.

Hatch was generally an advocate for a permanent legislative solution that would recognize the positive contribution “Dreamers” make in their communities. “Dreamers” underwent some controversy in recent years as the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which protected about 800,000 people from deportation, expired in March.

"These are young people who are in limbo. It's not fair to them," he said in September of 2017. "Many of them have proven themselves as decent, honorable people who would make great citizens in this country. We're providing a means whereby they could get there."

4. The US Supreme Court

Hatch served for many years as the chair or ranking minority member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He fought to get conservative judges nominated to the Supreme Court and took a leading role in the confirmation of Clarence Thomas in 1991.

He did, however, recommend Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to President Bill Clinton two years later, though he knew she was liberal, he wrote in his autobiography “Square Peg: Confessions of a Citizen-Senator.” In 2018, he viscerally defended Brett Kavanaugh during the controversy that swirled around the now-Supreme Court justice’s confirmation.

5. Pot puns

On 4/20, Hatch (completely coincidentally) delivered a speech that called on the attorney general to cease efforts by the Drug Enforcement Agency to slow medical marijuana research. The speech was a pun master’s dream and got a long drag on social media.

Hatch said it’s “high time” Congress addressed the issue and called the bipartisan initiative a “joint effort” that would allow scientists to delve into the “weeds” on the safety and effects of medical marijuana.

“To be blunt, we need to remove the administrative barriers preventing legitimate research into medical marijuana," he said. "That's why I've decided to roll out the MEDS Act."

Many on social media thought his pun game was dope.

6. A balanced budget

Hatch has been a big fan of amending the Constitution to require that total spending of the federal government not exceed total receipts for that fiscal year. He sponsored and co-sponsored a balanced budget amendment 17 times — all of which failed, the last one by only one vote in the Senate.

"We're $14 trillion in national debt, and it's going up every day," Hatch told the Deseret News in 2011. "Frankly I don't think there is a downside (to a balanced-budget amendment). If we don't do something like that, we're never going to get things under control."

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7. Presidential bid

Hatch attempted to secure the Republican presidential nomination in 2000, but eventually dropped out of the race and endorsed then-Texas Governor George W. Bush.

8. CHIP

The Children’s Health Insurance Program provides matching funds to states for health insurance for families that have smaller incomes too high to qualify for Medicaid. The legislation was sponsored by Hatch and his long-time friend, Democrat Ted Kennedy.

The plan expired in 2017, but the Senate reauthorized it for 10 more years in 2018 — through many thought that would never happen.

9. Medal of Freedom

In November, Hatch received the Presidential Medal Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the U.S.

"It’s an honor to me and I think an honor to Utah," Hatch said in November. "I think people in Utah have realized that Hatch is not just a politician or a just political figure. He’s somebody who really represents the state and represents our culture out there, and does it with kind of a verve."

"His achievements are too numerous to count," President Donald Trump said.

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