Who was Orrin G. Hatch? Tributes pour in as the longest-serving Utah Senator dies at 88

Republican senator from Utah, Orrin G. Hatch recently passed away on April 23, 2022, at the age of 88. The news was announced by the Hatch Foundation.

Everything known about Orrin G. Hatch

Born on March 22, 1934, Hatch was the longest-serving Republican senator and represented Utah from 1977 to 2019. He was also the president's pro tempore in the Senate from 2015 to 2019.

Orrin earned his bachelor’s degree from Brigham Young University and a law degree from the University of Pittsburgh. He was a lawyer in Pittsburgh from 1963 to 1969 and later relocated his practice to Salt Lake City, Utah. He was then elected to the Senate in 1977, where he was recognized as a crusader for conservative values.

Hatch helped defeat the proposed Labor Law Reform Act of 1978, which could have expanded the power of labor unions. He then voted against the Equal Rights Amendment, which would have invalidated state and federal laws that discriminate on the basis of sex.

He also co-sponsored the Missing Children Act in 1982 which established the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, alongside the Comprehensive Education Act, which required that cigarette packaging carry warnings about the dangers of smoking.

He continued to serve as a powerful voice for conservatives and voted in favor of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, although the law was struck down in 1997. He announced in 1999 that he would run for the Republican nomination for the presidency, but dropped out of the race after a disappointing primary finish behind front-runner George W. Bush.

Hatch worked to set restrictions on class-action lawsuits and to curb medical malpractice suits, sponsoring bills to that effect in 2004 and 2009. He was also a vocal critic of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Orrin became one of the Senate’s most vocal supporters of Donald Trump and played an important role in fulfilling one of Trump’s campaign pledges, tax reform, in 2017. He wrote Square Peg: Confessions of a Citizen Senator in 2002 and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2018.

Netizens pay tribute on Twitter

Twitter was flooded with tributes when people heard about Orrin G. Hatch’s death:

His cause of death remains unknown and is survived by his wife Elaine Hansen and six children.

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Anupal is a pop culture writer at Sportskeeda with a degree in Political Science. He developed a keen interest in the lives of celebrities, films, TV shows, and box office collections since an early age. After accumulating significant experience as a content writer across varied fields at companies such as The Indian Wire, DigiStatement, and QuirkyByte Media, he eventually settled on writing about his favorite genre - pop culture.

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