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Orrin Hatch's stance on U.S. Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland is another hint that Utah's senior senator was just kidding when he promised in 2012, while seeking a seventh term, that it would be his last.

Hatch has shifted to the right on several issues since his re-election that suggests he is stressing his appeal to the extremist tea party elements that gained a foothold in Utah's Republican Party in 2010.

Perhaps for another run in 2018?

Hatch co-sponsored, with late Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy, legislation that created the Children's Health Insurance Program. But after the tea party tsunami in 2010, he began making overtures, as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, to reduce access to the "socialist" program that provides health coverage to low-income kids.

He co-sponsored the Dream Act, which helped children of undocumented immigrants go to college in the states where they grew up, before he more recently opposed it.

He backed the Violence Against Women Act before he recently bucked it, joining other conservatives in complaining that the new version had too many liberal elements.

With Garland, whose nomination came despite the threat by Senate Republicans that they would not entertain any election-year selection to the high court by President Barack Obama, Hatch had nothing but praise for the nominee when he was picked by then President Bill Clinton for the D.C. Circuit Court.

But Hatch has joined the GOP chorus, ruling out a hearing on Obama's pick.

Perhaps the administration could get Hatch on its side if it got a female artist — Beyoncé perhaps? — ­to record a song penned by Hatch and then speak in favor of a Garland confirmation.

It has worked before.

Hatch was one of the few "no" votes in the Senate Judiciary Committee on a prison-reform bill co-sponsored by fellow Utah Sen. Mike Lee that would change the draconian mandatory-minimum sentences judges are forced to impose in certain drug cases. The legislation is championed by Obama — the tea party's anti-Christ.

But even such conservative stalwarts as Sens. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, John Cornyn of Texas, Jeff Flake of Arizona and Rand Paul of Kentucky voted for the measure, which cleared the committee, 15-5.

Hatch did not join Lee and other conservatives, including University of Utah law professor and former federal judge Paul Cassell and former U.S. Attorney for Utah Brett Tolman, in pushing Obama to commute the sentence of Utahn http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/2753837-155/editorial-why-is-weldon-angelos-still">Weldon Angelos, who, under the federal guidelines, was sentenced in 2003 to 55 years in prison for selling $350 worth of marijuana because he was in possession of a gun during the transactions.

But Hatch was head cheerleader in the 2008 movement to free rapper John Forté, who was serving a 14-year mandatory sentence for his 2001 conviction in a $1.4 million cocaine bust.

Forté had the support of several high-profile stars in the entertainment business — most notably singing legend Carly Simon, who lobbied Hatch to support the rapper's release.

Hatch publicly spoke on behalf of Forté and personally lobbied President George W. Bush's White House to commute the recording artist's sentence. Did he do it as a favor to Simon? Who knows? But she did record the song "Are You Lonely Here With Me?" that was written by Hatch.