Utah Republican Senator Orrin Hatch, a staunch supporter of Donald Trump, an admitted flip-flopper, misogynist, racist, and prolific prevaricator, wrote an article entitled The Role of Federal Judges in the Modern Administrative State which was published on March 27, 2017 in The Regulatory Review, produced by students at the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
In that article Hatch said, “As the most senior member and former Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, I have assessed the qualifications of more than 1,800 nominees to the federal bench. In my 40 years of service in the Senate, I have generally evaluated each nominee based on two criteria: whether the nominee has the qualifications and experience necessary to serve as a federal judge, and whether the nominee understands a judge’s proper role under the U.S. Constitution.”
If Senator Hatch truly evaluates each nominee for a federal judgeship based on whether he or she has the “the qualifications and experience necessary to serve as a federal judge, and whether the nominee understands a judge’s proper role under the U.S. Constitution”, why did he vote to approve Brett Talley, a nominee with no trial experience and who has been unanimously rated not qualified by the American Bar Association’s judicial rating committee?
Brett Talley obviously does not meet Hatch’s own criteria to serve as a federal judge, making decisions that can and will change the lives and fortunes of countless American citizens throughout his prospective lifetime tenure.
So, what could possibly motivate the senior senator from Utah to completely contravene what he wrote just eight months ago and vote to move Brett Talley’s nomination forward in the United States Senate?
Is Hatch’s vote for Brett Talley just one more example of the honorable senator from Utah cowering with the majority of Republicans in Congress who are so frightened of Donald Trump they dare not put country ahead of politics?
We all know the answer to that question . . . don’t we?