Orrin Hatch Quotes

“Microsoft is engaging in unlawful predatory practices that go well beyond the scope of fair competition.”

— Orrin Hatch

“Capital punishment is our society's recognition of the sanctity of human life.”

— Orrin Hatch

We cannot let our respect for the FBI blind us from the fact the FBI has sometimes come up short of our expectations.

— Orrin Hatch

“The fact is ... our doors have not exactly been knocked down by companies willing to defend Microsoft's business practices.”

— Orrin Hatch

“The First Amendment is not an altar on which we must sacrifice our children, families, and community standards. Obscene material that is not protected by the First Amendment can and must be prohibited.”

— Orrin Hatch

“The Federal government does not have any information about extraterrestrial life to conceal, and there are no secret projects for me to investigate.”

— Orrin Hatch

I do know dumb-ass questions when I see dumb-ass questions.

— Orrin Hatch

“Vigilant and effective antitrust enforcement today is preferable to the heavy hand of government regulation of the Internet tomorrow.”

— Orrin Hatch

“Judges who take the law into their own hands, who make up constitutional 'rights' in order to strike down laws they oppose, undermine the people's right to have their values shape public policy and define the culture.”

— Orrin Hatch

“Our heroes are fighting to bring stability to the Middle East, and they have put pressure on all of the tyrannies of the Middle East. They have taken a stand against tyranny, against terrorists, and for the prospect of decent societies throughout that region.”

— Orrin Hatch

“No matter how badly senators want to know things, judicial nominees are limited in what they may discuss. That limitation is real, and it comes from the very nature of what judges do.”

— Orrin Hatch

There is a good reason they call these ceremonies 'commencement exercises'. Graduation is not the end; it's the beginning.

— Orrin Hatch

If gun laws in fact worked, the sponsors of this type of legislation should have no difficulty drawing upon long lists of examples of criminal acts reduced by such legislation. That they cannot do so after a century and a half of trying - that they must sweep under the rug the southern attempts at gun control in the 1870-1910 period, the northeastern attempts in the 1920-1939 period, the attempts at both Federal and State levels in 1965-1976 - establishes the repeated, complete and inevitable failure of gun laws to control serious crime.

— Orrin Hatch

Under the Constitution, the president, not the Senate, nominates and appoints judges. The Senate has a different role. We must give our advice .

— Orrin Hatch

“Mentioning God in the Pledge of Allegiance is no different in kind than allowing government salaried Chaplains for the military or for the Congress, or including the official motto, In God We Trust, on our currency.”

— Orrin Hatch

“The place where you got to get revenues has to come from the middle class. That's where the huge number of people that are there. So the system does need to be revamped [to tax the rich less and the middle class more.]”

— Orrin Hatch

“We should evaluate judges and judicial nominees based on the general process for applying the law to any legal disputes, not on the specific result in a particular case or dispute.”

— Orrin Hatch

“In my legal practice, I have seen certain Federal judges controlled or influenced by large corporations ... , by large law firms ... on more than one occasion(, and) ... by special interests ... (some) ought to be thrown right off the bench because they are breaking every code of conduct ...”

— Orrin Hatch

“We must use a judicial, rather than a political, standard to evaluate [a nominee's] fitness for the Supreme Court. That standard must be based on the fundamental principle that judges interpret and apply but do not make law.”

— Orrin Hatch

“I sleep so much better at night, knowing that America is protected from thin pickles and fast ketchup.”

— Orrin Hatch

Chief Justice [John] Roberts compared judges to umpires, who apply rules they did not write and cannot change to the competition before them.

— Orrin Hatch

“As was noted in the Wall Street Journal, last March 21st, FDA approval of drug labelling, ' ... requires seven to ten years, and costs each applicant an average of $70 million.'”

— Orrin Hatch

“However, FDA attempted to reverse this clear congressional intent in March, 1979, by proposing to regulate vitamins and minerals as 'Over-The-Counter' drugs..”

— Orrin Hatch

“The only ones who will see an increase in pay are some of the trial lawyers who bring the cases.”

— Orrin Hatch

“A judicial standard means that a judicious decision can be entirely correct, even when the result does not line up with our preferred political positions or cater to certain political interests.”

— Orrin Hatch

“By admitting they have no contingency plan to assist the millions that may lose subsidies, the administration confirms how the misguided law is unworkable for the American people, i'm committed to working with my Republican colleagues on how Congress can respond to help those hurt by Obamacare's broken promises.”

— Orrin Hatch

“Scorecards are common in the political process, but they are inappropriate in the judicial process. The most important tools in the judicial confirmation process are not litmus paper and a calculator.”

— Orrin Hatch

“We're going to find out who did this and we're going after the bastards [referring to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon]”

— Orrin Hatch

“I think that support of this [stem cell] research is a pro-life pro-family position. This research holds out hope for more than 100 million Americans.”

— Orrin Hatch

“We must apply a judicial, not a political, standard to this record. Asking a judicial nominee whose side you will be on in future cases is a political standard.”

— Orrin Hatch

I do not think it is any benefit for artists or fans to have all the new, wide distribution channels in the online world controlled by those who have controlled the old, narrower ones, .. This is especially true if they achieve that control by leveraging their dominance in content or conduit space in an anticompetitive way to control the new, independent music services that are attempting to enhance the consumer's experience of music.

— Orrin Hatch

“But I bear witness to Christ, too. I really know him to be the savior of the world. And that means more to me than almost anything else I know.”

— Orrin Hatch

“If they can shut down ABC News and ABC network programming just because they don't agree on something, it makes you wonder”

— Orrin Hatch

“We must apply a judicial rather than a political standard to the information before us [if choosing a Judge].”

— Orrin Hatch

You know, we should not be giving cash to people who basically are just going to blow it on drugsand not take care of their own children.

— Orrin Hatch

When Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg was before us in 1993, she said that her standard was to give no hints, no forecasts, no previews, and declined to answer dozens of questions.

— Orrin Hatch

“Because judges may not issue advisory opinions, judicial nominees may not do so either, especially on issues likely to come before the court. That rule has always been honored.”

— Orrin Hatch

“We must remember that judicial nominees are constrained in what they may discuss and how they may discuss it.”

— Orrin Hatch

“This principle that judges are not politicians lies at the very heart of a judicial job - of the judicial job description.”

— Orrin Hatch

“In our system of government, the judicial and legislative branches have different roles. Judges are not politicians. Judges must decide cases, not champion causes. Judges must settle legal disputes, not pursue agendas. Judges must interpret and apply the law, not make the law.”

— Orrin Hatch

“Ending up in the right place in this debate requires starting in the right place. The right place to start is the proper discrimination of what judges are supposed to do, and the rest of the process should reflect this judicial job description.”

— Orrin Hatch

“The debate over judicial nominations is a debate over the judiciary itself. It is a debate over how much power unelected judges should have in our system of government, how much control judges should have over a written constitution that belongs to the people.”

— Orrin Hatch

“The fact that Judge [Samuel] Alito is such a baseball fan gives me even more confidence that he knows the proper role of a judge.”

— Orrin Hatch