Adviser: Trump confident in FBI director despite attacks
Donald Trump has full confidence in his new FBI director despite a series of attacks on the impartiality of his soon-to-retire deputy, a presidential adviser said Sunday. Trump is "very pleased" with Director Chris Wray and "the changes that are taking place," White House legislative affairs director Marc Short told "Fox News Sunday" as Trump continued to assail Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who plans to retire from the bureau next year.
Orrin G . Hatch of Utah, the longest-serving Republican senator , has announced at age 83 that he will not seek an eighth term. As others consider the electoral implications of Hatch ’ s announcement, consider these implications for the Senate when Hatch retires later this year.
Senator Orrin G . Hatch of Utah, the longest-serving Senate Republican, announced Tuesday that he would retire at the end of the year, rebuffing personal pleas from President Trump to seek an eighth term and paving the way for Mitt Romney, a critic of Mr. Trump’ s , to run for the seat.
-
After 42 years in the Senate, Utah Senator Orrin Hatch is announced his retirement on Jan. 2, effective at the need of the year. In a video statement, he said, ‘"When the president visited Utah last month, he said I was a fighter. I've always been a fighter. I was an amateur boxer in my youth, and I brought that fighting spirit with me to Washington. But every good fighter knows when to hang up the gloves. And for me, that time is soon approaching."
We take a look at some highs and lows of his long career in the Senate.
-
1976
Orrin Hatch was elected as a conservative Republican Senator from Utah in 1976. It was his first political race.
Sen. Hatch thanks paper for scathing editorial
Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch is proudly claiming the Salt Lake City Tribune's title of "Utahn of the Year" – even if the newspaper did not intend it to be an honorific. The Tribune editorial said it gives the award to the Utah resident who has had the most influence for "for good or for ill." Decrying Hatch's "utter lack of integrity that rises from his unquenchable thirst for power," the editorial blasted the state's senior senator for supporting efforts to shrink national monuments in his state as well as his work on the major tax cut bill that President Trump signed last week.
Orrin Hatch , R-Utah, talks with reporters after leaving the Senate floor at the U.S. Capitol, May 18, 2015 in Washington. Here & Now's Meghna Chakrabarti takes a look at the impact of Hatch ' s departure, his support for President Trump and the likelihood that Mitt Romney will run to succeed
Veteran Senator Orrin Hatch plans to retire at the end of the year, despite personal entreaties from President Trump. The president went all-out to persuade
-
1980
Hatch surprisingly maintained a lifelong friendship with liberal Democratic Senator Edward Kennedy.
-
1983
A staunch pro-life Senator, he sponsored a constitutional amendment to empower Congress and the states to ban abortions in 1983, which failed.
(Pictured) Hatch left, poses with Sen. Bob Packwood (R-Ore.), just after the Senate vote, rejecting a constitutional amendment to empower Congress and the states to ban abortions, June 28, 1983 in Washington. Hatch was the move's chief sponsor and Packwood its principal opponent.
-
1987
Hatch has always wanted to serve on the US Supreme Court and he was on Ronald Reagan’s short list to succeed Justice Powell in 1987. Ultimately, that seat went to Anthony Kennedy.
President Trump's ambitious agenda: 7 things to watch in 2018
Trump may have big policy plans for 2018, but political distractions are likely to shadow prospects of big legislative achievements. White House officials said Trump wants to rein in the threat from North Korea and list four top domestic priorities on his 2018 agenda: Repealing and replacing President Obama's 2010 health care law, welfare reform, immigration, and a new infrastructure plan. "I would expect to see those four areas, as well as national security, which never goes away," White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said.
Incumbent Republican U. S . Senator Orrin Hatch won re-election to a seventh term against former state Senator and IBM executive, Scott Howell the Democratic candidate.[2] This would be the last time Hatch was elected to the Senate before his retirement in 2018.
New @monkeycageblog post: What Hatch ' s retirement means for the Senate . Come for the stroll down Kennedy- Hatch memory lane, stay for the Peanuts gang playing musical (committee) chairs.
-
1999
Hatch ran for President in 1999, but lost the nomination to George W. Bush.
-
2001
Along with Democratic Senator Dick Durbin, he introduced the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act" or "DREAM Act."
(Pictured) During the Senate Judiciary Committee markup, Sen. Charles E. Grassley, R-Iowa, and Chairman Orrin G. Hatch, listen as Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., left, makes a statement opposing S1545, the DREAM Act of 2003.
-
2005
He has been known to support causes generally not favored by conservatives like himself. In 2005, he supported legislation for stem cell research and was one of the few Republican leaders to support federal programs for AIDS education in 1988.
Republicans who won't be coming back to Congress after 2018 midterm elections
On average, nearly two dozen House members retire each cycle without seeking another office.Sen. Orrin Hatch, the longest-serving Senate Republican, announced Tuesday that he would not seek re-election – ending weeks of speculation to the contrary.
Hatch ' s retirement kicks off an open race for a reliably Republican Senate seat, and one worry for Trump is that one of his biggest GOP critics could replace the Utah senator : Mitt Romney, whose name has been at the top of the list for the GOP nomination for months. When asked if the president would
President Donald Trump made one thing very clear over the last few months: He badly wanted Utah Republican Orrin Hatch to run for another Senate term.
(Pictured) Hatch, Michael J. Fox, actor and founder of the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research, Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., Rep. Michael N. Castle, R-Del., and Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, during a news conference/rally urging a vote on the Senate floor on HR 810 for stem cell research legislation.
-
2007
In 2007, he became Utah’s longest-serving Senator. At his retirement in 2017, he would have been the longest serving Republican Senator, having held the position for 42 years.
-
2014
As of 2014, Hatch had the distinction of being one of the senators who had passed the most laws in their tenure. He had sponsored or co-sponsored 742 bills that became law. Some of these laws include the Comprehensive Smoking Education Act (1984) which required cigarette makers to put warning on their packaging and he helped draft 2001’s controversial Patriot Act.
-
2014
One of those laws was the Songwriter Equity Act in 2014, allowing songwriters to be paid fairly. Hatch himself writes songs in his spare time.
Sen. Orrin Hatch: Romney will 'have my support' if he runs for Senate
Utah Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch said Wednesday that he would support Mitt Romney if the 2012 GOP presidential nominee decides to enter the race to replace him when he retires at the end of his term. Hatch announced his retirement in a statement on Tuesday. Romney is seen as a likely candidate for Hatch's seat. "I didn't call (Romney) before I made this announcement, but I did call him a while back and explored with him what he had on his mind, and I won't discuss what we discussed," Hatch said on Utah's Morning News radio program. "But there's no question that he loves Utah and wants to support Utah anyway he can.
-
2016
He originally supported Jeb Bush for the Republican nomination for President, then backed fellow Senator Marco Rubio after Bush left the race. Ultimately, he went on to endorse Trump for President.
-
2017
Hatch supported Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke's controversial recommendation to decrease the size of two of Utah’s national monuments: Bears Ears and Grand Escalante.
-
2017
Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, R-Wis., seated at center with Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, right, presents a pen to House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady, R-Texas, left, as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., second from left, watches after signing the final version of the GOP tax bill during an enrollment ceremony at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, Dec. 21, 2017.
Photo gallery by photo services
Sen. Orrin G. Hatch of Utah, the longest-serving Republican senator, has announced at age 83 that he will not seek an eighth term. Analysts suggested late last year that he would be vulnerable to a primary challenge should he seek the GOP nomination for another term, and in a poll last summer an overwhelming majority of Utah voters suggested it was time for Hatch to step down.
CHIP funding was supposed to last through March. It could start to run out in 2 weeks.
Coverage for millions of kids is in jeopardy. The Trump administration said on Friday that Congress’s short-term fix to keep a health insurance program that covers 9 million American children running through March could start to run out in just two weeks. Congress has been courting disaster with the Children’s Health Insurance Program, failing to extend funding when it ran out in September. States have begged them to act, and Congress approved a package in December to help states keep running their programs through March. But the program could be in trouble again much sooner.
Subscribe to the Post Most newsletter: Today’s most popular stories on The Washington Post
As others consider the electoral implications of Hatch’s announcement, consider these implications for the Senate when Hatch retires later this year.
The Senate will remain a geriatric chamber even after Hatch’s departure. As the figure below shows, the average senator is roughly 10 years older than in 1981, making the current Senate “among the oldest” in U.S. history.
© Provided by WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post Eight octogenarians serve in the Senate, The Washington Post’s Paul Kane noted last month. A handful of septuagenarian senators legislate alongside them. That’s unusual historically, though hardly surprising. In the Senate’s first century there were shorter life spans and fewer career lawmakers, which also made octogenarians rare in the body’s second century.
As Kane pointed out, every elderly senator occupies a key committee leadership post. And the chamber has felt the consequences. The Republican policy agenda was slowed in some way this past year by their elderly colleagues’ injuries, illnesses and absences. Hatch’s departure will do little to resolve such problems.
According to new work by political scientists Craig Volden and Alan Wiseman, the number of truly effective Senate lawmakers has dropped markedly in recent years. Hatch’s departure furthers that decline.
Hatch is best known for his legislative partnership with the late Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts. Despite being ideological opposites, they managed a friendship that yielded bipartisan, landmark public health laws: health insurance for children in low-income families known as S-CHIP and aid for low-income, uninsured victims of HIV/AIDS and their families. With then-Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), Hatch forged another legislative partnership to produce the Orphan Drug Act and create the modern generic drug industry. Even in the hyperpartisan Senate of recent years, Hatch helped secure Senate passage of a bipartisan, comprehensive immigration bill in 2013.
Lawmakers rail against Trump after 's---hole' comment
President Trump faced bipartisan criticism on Thursday after The Washington Post reported that the president referred to Haiti and several African nations as "shithole" countries during an Oval Office meeting with lawmakers. During the meeting, the president reportedly questioned why the U.S. continues to accept so many immigrants from "shithole" nations such as Haiti and some African countries."Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?" Trump said, according to multiple people briefed on the meeting.
For better or for worse, Hatch also excels at exploiting the rules to block major legislation. As a freshman in 1978, the senator launched a filibuster and nearly derailed Democrats’ landmark labor law to modernize the Federal Reserve during an ailing economy. More recently, he has been the strongest defender of the nutritional supplements industry. Scientist and consumer critics of the industry say Hatch has worked for decades to derail legislative and regulatory efforts that would empower the government to block unsafe products from markets that make unproven claims about their health benefits.
Hatch has at times been a constructive legislative partner with Democrats and at other times an ardent partisan foe. Neither is common in today’s more partisan and centralized Senate, where party leaders tend to steer and advance the agenda. That leaves little legislative leeway for senators such as Hatch to make their mark on policy. That perhaps contributes to why Hatch has failed to secure the future of his prized S-CHIP.
If Republicans hold the Senate after the 2018 elections, get ready for a game of musical chairs to fill new openings at the helm of major committees. The Senate GOP imposes term limits on committee chairs, limiting service to three two-year terms. When he retires next year, Hatch opens the Finance Committee chair. Senators overwhelmingly fill their top spots by seniority. This makes Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) first in line to fill that chairmanship. But Grassley now heads the Judiciary Committee, having previously served four years at the helm of finance.
And so, get the music ready. As Roll Call helpfully games out for us, if Grassley moves to the Finance Committee, he must step down as chair after two years, given his four prior years as chair. If he stays at judiciary, Sen. Michael Crapo (R-Idaho) could move to chair the Finance Committee, and Sen. Patrick J. Toomey (R-Pa.) could capture the Senate Banking Committee chair.
What’s the point? Republicans have a deep bench of older senators with long careers and years of Senate experience. But they’ve made a rule on their committee chairs that likely limits their legislative prowess: Wiseman and Volden show that longer-serving chairs tend to be more effective lawmakers. Imposing term limits on GOP Senate committee chairs might explain the recent decline in their effectiveness.
Such limits could kneecap expertise, weaken institutional memory and further empower party leaders — making it harder for senators to engage in constructive lawmaking at which senators such as Hatch once excelled.
'I Don’t Know Why They’ve Waited.' Families Stress Over Delay in Children's Health Funding .
Lauren Cooper first started to notice something was awry with her daughter Molly when she was seven months old, in 2003, and was unable to bear any weight on her legs. Lauren Cooper first started to notice something was awry with her daughter Molly when she was seven months old, in 2003, and was unable to bear any weight on her legs. Alarmed, she and her husband Kevin Allen took her to a slew of doctors and neurologists, but a diagnosis evaded them. Finally, Cooper found something on the internet called Rett Syndrome, a rare neurological disorder found mainly in girls with symptoms that matched her daughters’.
Donald Trump has full confidence in his new FBI director despite a series of attacks on the impartiality of his soon-to-retire deputy, a presidential adviser said Sunday. Trump is "very pleased" with Director Chris Wray and "the changes that are taking place," White House legislative affairs director Marc Short told "Fox News Sunday" as Trump continued to assail Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who plans to retire from the bureau next year. 
Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch is proudly claiming the Salt Lake City Tribune's title of "Utahn of the Year" – even if the newspaper did not intend it to be an honorific. The Tribune editorial said it gives the award to the Utah resident who has had the most influence for "for good or for ill." Decrying Hatch's "utter lack of integrity that rises from his unquenchable thirst for power," the editorial blasted the state's senior senator for supporting efforts to shrink national monuments in his state as well as his work on the major tax cut bill that President Trump signed last week. 
Trump may have big policy plans for 2018, but political distractions are likely to shadow prospects of big legislative achievements. White House officials said Trump wants to rein in the threat from North Korea and list four top domestic priorities on his 2018 agenda: Repealing and replacing President Obama's 2010 health care law, welfare reform, immigration, and a new infrastructure plan. "I would expect to see those four areas, as well as national security, which never goes away," White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said. 
On average, nearly two dozen House members retire each cycle without seeking another office.Sen. Orrin Hatch, the longest-serving Senate Republican, announced Tuesday that he would not seek re-election – ending weeks of speculation to the contrary. 
Utah Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch said Wednesday that he would support Mitt Romney if the 2012 GOP presidential nominee decides to enter the race to replace him when he retires at the end of his term. Hatch announced his retirement in a statement on Tuesday. Romney is seen as a likely candidate for Hatch's seat. "I didn't call (Romney) before I made this announcement, but I did call him a while back and explored with him what he had on his mind, and I won't discuss what we discussed," Hatch said on Utah's Morning News radio program. "But there's no question that he loves Utah and wants to support Utah anyway he can. 
Coverage for millions of kids is in jeopardy. The Trump administration said on Friday that Congress’s short-term fix to keep a health insurance program that covers 9 million American children running through March could start to run out in just two weeks. Congress has been courting disaster with the Children’s Health Insurance Program, failing to extend funding when it ran out in September. States have begged them to act, and Congress approved a package in December to help states keep running their programs through March. But the program could be in trouble again much sooner. 
President Trump faced bipartisan criticism on Thursday after The Washington Post reported that the president referred to Haiti and several African nations as "shithole" countries during an Oval Office meeting with lawmakers. During the meeting, the president reportedly questioned why the U.S. continues to accept so many immigrants from "shithole" nations such as Haiti and some African countries."Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?" Trump said, according to multiple people briefed on the meeting. 
'I Don’t Know Why They’ve Waited.' Families Stress Over Delay in Children's... 
