Orrin Hatch: Term Limits are for Nutcakes

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Halleluiah. Six more years of Orrin Hatch. By the time he is up for re-election he will have served 36 years in the U.S. Senate. To Democrats in Utah (all fifty of them), Hatch’s hypocritical stance on term limits is a familiar part of the state’s political folklore. During Hatch’s first run for political office in 1976, he made term-limits a central part of his campaign against popular incumbent senator Frank Moss. He once told Moss, “Senator, you have served the people of Utah for 18 years; it’s time to retire.” (Source: “Legislators drag feet on term limits,” Deseret News, December 17, 2003)

Not only has Orrin Hatch refused to follow his own wisdom that Washington should be run by citizen-legislators, not career politicians, but he–as chair of the Judiciary Committee–has been a major opponent of federally legislated term limits, this according to the Cato Institute.

— Koshlan Mayer-Blackwell

DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do things differently in the aftermath of a political crisis: Watergate. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after, and go deep on, stories others don’t. And we’re a nonprofit newsroom because we knew corporations and billionaires would never fund the journalism we do. Our reporting makes a difference in policies and people’s lives changed.

And we need your support like never before to vigorously fight back against the existential threats American democracy and journalism face. We’re running behind our online fundraising targets and urgently need all hands on deck right now. We can’t afford to come up short—we have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

Please help with a donation today if you can—even just a few bucks helps. Not ready to donate but interested in our work? Sign up for our Daily newsletter to stay well-informed—and see what makes our people-powered, not profit-driven, journalism special.

payment methods

DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do things differently in the aftermath of a political crisis: Watergate. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after, and go deep on, stories others don’t. And we’re a nonprofit newsroom because we knew corporations and billionaires would never fund the journalism we do. Our reporting makes a difference in policies and people’s lives changed.

And we need your support like never before to vigorously fight back against the existential threats American democracy and journalism face. We’re running behind our online fundraising targets and urgently need all hands on deck right now. We can’t afford to come up short—we have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

Please help with a donation today if you can—even just a few bucks helps. Not ready to donate but interested in our work? Sign up for our Daily newsletter to stay well-informed—and see what makes our people-powered, not profit-driven, journalism special.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate