Washington » Sen. Orrin Hatch cast his 12,000th vote on Thursday, marking a milestone in the Senate surpassed by only 13 other members in the history of the body.
The Utah Republican, who entered the Senate in 1977, joked in an interview that he doesn't pay attention to "stuff like that" but that he was humbled to be able to offer so many votes in his career.
"Well, there aren't too many who have done that over the years," Hatch said. "And you know, I'm just honored to be able to vote for my folks out in Utah and of course for this country as a whole. It's a wonderful honor and privilege for me."
Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., holds the highest vote count of any senator, having cast more than 18,500 votes since he was sworn into the Senate in 1959. The ailing senator, who was recently hospitalized, came to the Senate floor for the first time in a while to applaud Hatch.
Hatch cast his 12,000th ballot on Thursday, voting against an amendment from Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., that would delay testimony by the commanders of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq until President Barack Obama releases his Afghanistan policy.
"For Republicans, he's a good friend, a constant ally and one of the best advocates we have," Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell said during a tribute to Hatch. "To Americans, he's the very picture of a United States senator."
Sen. Bob Bennett, who has served with Hatch since 1993, said the senior senator has been a great mentor.
"I could not have wished for a more reliable or more supportive senior colleague than Orrin Hatch," Bennett said.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada praised Hatch as a statesman.
"People in Utah are proud of Senator Hatch for a lot of reasons," Reid said. "His name is really synonymous with Utah."
Hatch noted in an interview that he regrets at least one of those 12,000 votes: his opposition to naming a federal holiday after civil rights crusader Martin Luther King Jr. Hatch was one of 22 votes in 1983 against adding the holiday but now says he should have looked beyond the price tag -- conservatives at the time argued it would cost a billion dollars -- but instead looked at what it meant to a large segment of America.
"If I had that vote to cast over I would have cast it for that holiday because it represented what was really important to a lot of good people in this society," Hatch said. "And I got stuck on the economic aspects of it, rather than the human aspects of it."
There are only four, still-serving senators ahead of Hatch in the vote count, including Byrd and Sens. Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Richard Lugar of Indiana.
