Tim Chambless: 'How would a Justice [Orrin] Hatch have been different from Justice Anthony Kennedy? Would the progressive Americans With Disabilities Act and the Children’s Health Insurance Program have been easily enacted?'
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Joseph Biden, D-Del., left, and Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., right, listen during witness confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Robert H. Bork, Sept. 21, 1987 in Washington. Far left is Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Strom Thurmond, R-S.C.Today the U.S. Supreme Court is making controversial decisions. Could Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch have been a U.S. Supreme Court Justice? Yes, it could have happened. Sen.
I first met Hatch in 1976. He had won his party’s nomination for the U.S. Senate at age 42, and later that year defeated Sen. Frank Moss — a three-term Utah Democrat. Hatch was a lawyer very knowledgeable of Supreme Court cases. He was quick to cite court decisions that he felt had been settled wrongly. And he was aware that there had only been one Supreme Court justice ever to serve from Utah.
Hatch told me that an aide close to Reagan – not the president – had confided to Hatch that the White House was inclined to nominate a sitting federal judge to the Supreme Court rather than a member of Congress with no experience as a sitting judge. However, if Hatch was willing to be appointed to serve as a federal judge briefly, then he could be nominated quickly for the Supreme Court when a future opening occurred.
Many questions. What if Orrin Hatch had been a Supreme Court Justice for over 30 years — from 1988 until possibly today?
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