Editor’s Note » This is part 2 of the story "Birth of a Politician: Orrin Hatch." Read the first part at http://bit.ly/A94Am3.
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Washington » When Orrin Hatch came to Washington his first office was in a basement with steam pipes decorating the ceiling. Senior Republicans told him to bide his time, learn the rules and one day — maybe — he could be a Senate big shot.
But Hatch didn’t want to be penned in with the other freshmen. He had just defeated a Democratic leader and was already getting buzz as a future presidential candidate. He wanted to be out front, leading the fight for conservative causes. Not in years, but right then in January 1977.
And he did fight. In his first year in office, Hatch battled President Jimmy Carter on energy policy and the handover of the Panama Canal. He went after unions and their legislative priorities. He even clashed with Sen. Jake Garn, his Utah Republican colleague.
Many of the positions that he advocated in that first year are the same that he is pushing 35 years later, but a few of his comments on such things as immigration and gay rights would raise eyebrows if he said them today.
The Sen. Orrin Hatch of 1977 had yet to become an icon of Utah politics. He was still a young politician learning how to compete in Washington, but as in his first campaign, he made it clear he had no intention of following the playbook.
"He did things you were not supposed to do as a new senator. You were supposed to be seen and not heard and vote the way you were told," said Frank Madsen, Hatch’s first chief of staff. "And that’s not Orrin."
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Fighting labor » Hatch took the oath of office on Jan. 5, 1977, in a quick ceremony performed by Vice President Nelson Rockefeller. He was one of 38 Republican senators in a Congress dominated by Democrats, who had just retaken the White House.
Ranked 98th in terms of seniority, Hatch was given the leftover committee assignments, including a spot on the panel overseeing organized labor. It suited him. To pay for college, Hatch had worked as part of the metal lathers union in Pittsburgh, but by the time he had become a senator, he had grown disenchanted with the labor movement.
His first speech from the Senate floor was a 25-minute denunciation of Carter’s pick for labor secretary, Ray Marshall, who was skeptical of right-to-work states like Utah and supported a bill that would give construction unions wide authority to picket work sites.
"Dr. Marshall is an obvious captive of the big union labor bosses in this country," Hatch told The Salt Lake Tribune shortly before the Senate confirmed Marshall on a 73-20 vote.
Hatch lost that battle, but he won a bigger one the next year when he led an effort to block a labor-law reform act that would have made it easier for unions to organize and grow their memberships. It is a victory Hatch still relishes, and one he says came with divine assistance.
"I just know if you live your principles and you do what is right, you can have extra help. It is that simple," he said.
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"We were going crazy" » Hatch didn’t focus solely on labor or any other issue for that matter. He wanted his say on just about everything.
"We dealt with every issue," said Madsen, who noted it put strain on the young staff. "We were going crazy."
Hatch endorsed his first balanced budget amendment in his second month in office. He has since backed his signature proposal 12 times, but it has never passed the Senate, including a failed vote last year. But that first attempt was much less stringent than recent versions and even included an income tax hike to pay for the deficit, something Republicans would reject out of hand today.
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