Letter: Orrin Hatch has lost his conscience
Bill co-sponsors Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., listen as President Barack Obama speaks before signing the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act at the SEED School of Washington, a public boarding school that serves inner-city students facing problems in both the classroom and at home, Tuesday, April 21, 2009. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
In 2010 a congressional research outfit rated Sen. Orrin Hatch as fifth most effective Republican to reach across parties to get legislation enacted.
His complicity with Ted Kennedy to pass CHIP, Americans with Disabilities Act, special education laws and many other worthy articles of legislation is well known. Rumor had it in the early years that Hatch became a moral support for Kennedy in his struggles with alcohol and marital failure.
Why, then, has Hatch retreated to such opposite extremes in his support of social and economic policies that either outright hurt or at least ignore the common or poor American for whom Kennedy so vociferously advocated? Is it because Kennedy was Hatch’s moral conscience in the political realm as Hatch was his in the personal realm?
Sen. Hatch seems a political horse of a different color since Kennedy’s death and the coincidental birth of the Tea Party.
Jake Zollinger
Murray
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