FOG BLOG U.S. POLITICAL NEWS LOG: FORMER SENATOR ORRIN HATCH DIES AT 88!

Former Sen. Orrin Hatch, longest-serving GOP US senator, dies at 88...Former Sen. Orrin Hatch, a Utah Republican, waits in the Senate President pro tempore office for the arrival of Brett Kavanaugh in the US Capitol on July 11, 2018 in Washington, DC.......Former Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, the longest-serving Republican senator in US history, died in Salt Lake City on Saturday at the age of 88.

Hatch, the former Senate president pro tempore, served in the chamber for 42 years from 1977 to 2019. The Hatch Foundation confirmed his death in a release, which did not include a cause.

"A man of wisdom, kindness, character, and compassion, Orrin G. Hatch was everything a United States Senator should be," said A. Scott Anderson, chairman of the Hatch Foundation. "He exemplified a generation of lawmakers brought up on the principles of comity and compromise, and he embodied those principles better than anyone. In a nation divided, Orrin Hatch helped show us a better way by forging meaningful friendships on both sides of the aisle."

An ardent conservative, Hatch favored corporate tax cuts, limited government, deregulation and military spending during his time in office. He consistently voted against gay rights, abortion and stricter gun laws; he reached across the aisle on issues including AIDs education and stem cell research as well as the DREAM Act.

As the ranking Republican on the Senate finance committee, Hatch ushered in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Job Act during the Trump administration, which was lauded as the biggest tax code change in three decades and criticized for favoring corporations and the wealthy.

Hatch also drew criticism for helping then-President Donald Trump dismantle the Bears Ears and the Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments in Utah. Hatch announced in January 2018 that he wouldn't seek re-election, shortly after his local newspaper The Salt Lake Tribune called for him to step down. His retirement cleared the way for Mitt Romney, a Utah Republican and 2012 presidential candidate, to return to elected office by running for and winning his seat. Romney was and remains a critic of Trump. Ahead of the Hatch's retirement announcement, then-President Trump urged him to stay in Washington. During a 2017 event in Utah, Trump called Hatch "a true fighter" and said he hoped the Republican would continue to serve "in the Senate for a very long time to come." At the time of Hatch's retirement announcement, then-White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said Trump was "very sad to see Senator Hatch leave." Hatch spoke at the time about growing partisanship in Congress. "My heart is heavy because it aches for the times when we actually lived up to our reputation as the world's greatest deliberative body. It longs for the days in which Democrats and Republicans would meet on middle ground rather than retreat to partisan trenches," Hatch said in a farewell speech on the Senate floor in December 2018.