Orrin Hatch: Term Limits are for Nutcakes

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Halleluiah. Six more years of Orrin Hatch. By the time he is up for re-election he will have served 36 years in the U.S. Senate. To Democrats in Utah (all fifty of them), Hatch’s hypocritical stance on term limits is a familiar part of the state’s political folklore. During Hatch’s first run for political office in 1976, he made term-limits a central part of his campaign against popular incumbent senator Frank Moss. He once told Moss, “Senator, you have served the people of Utah for 18 years; it’s time to retire.” (Source: “Legislators drag feet on term limits,” Deseret News, December 17, 2003)

Not only has Orrin Hatch refused to follow his own wisdom that Washington should be run by citizen-legislators, not career politicians, but he–as chair of the Judiciary Committee–has been a major opponent of federally legislated term limits, this according to the Cato Institute.

— Koshlan Mayer-Blackwell

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