Brent Orrin Hatch, son of the late Orrin Hatch and current candidate for the U.S. Senate, sat down with The Review to discuss his ongoing campaign to be the GOP nominee for Utah’s open Senate seat.
Hatch made his announcement to run for Senate back in early January, joining a crowded field of Republican candidates vying to replace Senator Mitt Romney, who announced his retirement back in September 2023. A theme present within The Review’s interview and Hatch’s announcement is that it isn’t something he needs to do but wants to do.
“Who’s gonna best represent me, but also who’s the person that’s gonna represent me that doesn’t really need this job?” Hatch remarked in context to what voters and delegates should be looking for in a candidate. “I am at a point in my career now, with my children grown … that I can actually give back. If this doesn’t happen then life goes on … I don’t bring to it a personal need for myself to do this. I bring it because I have, throughout my whole life, a strong belief in our constitutional system and the need to have people who are strong conservatives but also get along with other people.”
As a longtime trial lawyer who has served in two presidential administrations, Hatch has entered the race with a political legacy behind him. As mentioned earlier, Brent is the son of former Senator Orrin Hatch, who was replaced by Senator Mitt Romney. Becoming Senator in 1977, Orrin Hatch served Utah for 42 years before retiring in 2018.
“I am actually very proud of what he was able to do,” Hatch stated. “No matter where I am in Utah, it could be in the far corners of the state, I have people come up to me and tell me stories about what my father did for their family.”
During this conversation, the subject of term limits was brought up, where Hatch said he was in favor of a one-term limit on Senators. “I have become little bit more strident about it.”
The subject of the national debt was a hot topic for Hatch during the interview. Speaking of how interest has affected the size of the national budget, Hatch warns of what debt will do to the nation’s economy.
“If we would have thought about the borrowing we were doing 10 years ago and realize that we’d be at that place, and we’d be risking the military budget,” Hatch began. “It’s crazy.”
Hatch expressed how hard it is to create a balanced budget around the interest that grows around certain provisions in the budget. He expressed that if he becomes the Senator, he would look at what the country could afford for each proposed plan. Quoting Senator Mike Lee, Hatch said that “it’s not right-wing to say we can’t afford something.”
As the interview continued, the topic of the Supreme Court became a highlight of the conversation. Hatch currently serves as the treasurer for the Federalist Society, which is a conservative legal organization that advocates for an originalist perspective on the U.S. Constitution. He also served as a law clerk for then-circuit judge Robert Bork, who was famously denied a seat on the Supreme Court, coining the term “borked.”
“It seems to be a one-way rachet,” Hatch remarked regarding the contention around judicial nominations. “It seems to get worse and worse … with no way to get back to round one. Part of it is the responsibility of each of us to make sure that we pick people to represent us, particularly in the senate…, that people are mature enough … I think that’s one of the things I add [to the race].”
Concluding the interview, Hatch left a promise that he hopes to maintain within his campaign, a promise never to change. In reference to him doing unconventional things like wearing bow ties and sharing pictures of him pretending to be run over on his campaign site, he said he was who he was, and he wouldn’t change to get elected.
“That’s one of the things you’re gonna get with me; I am not going to change who I am just to get elected,” Hatch concluded.
To find out more about Brent Orrin Hatch and his campaign, visit his website. To watch the full interview, visit the UVU Review on YouTube. To listen to the full podcast version, visit The Review’s Spotify. Keep up with the UVU Review and our coverage of the 2024 Election!
