After playing a key role in overhauling the tax code, Sen. Orrin Hatch announced he will retire at the end of his term.
WASHINGTON — Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, the most senior Republican in the Senate, announced Tuesday he intends to retire at the end of his term. The move may pave the way for former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney to run for Hatch’s Senate seat.
“When the president visited Utah last month, he said I was a fighter,” Hatch said in a video posted on his Twitter account. “I was an amateur boxer in my youth and I’ve 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.
“After much prayer and discussion with family and friends, I’ve decided to retire at the end of this term,” Hatch said.
Hatch is currently in his seventh term — he was first elected in 1976 — and is the Senate president pro tempore, a largely ceremonial leadership position reserved for senior members. In his video address Hatch said he’s “authored more bills that have become law than any member of Congress alive today.”
The Utah Republican is chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. Republicans on that committee led the Senate effort to overhaul the tax code. Passed of that bill last month was the only major legislative accomplishment of President Trump’s presidency so far.
Hatch is popular in his state, and won with 65% of the vote in his 2012 re-election.
Sen. Mike Lee, Utah’s junior senator, said that Hatch would be “sorely missed.”
Romney, who ran for president in 2012, is expected to consider running for the seat. He has been a frequent critic of the president, and Trump had encouraged Hatch to run for re-election.
Romney weighed in on Hatch’s retirement Tuesday afternoon but did not address his own political future.
But Romney’s supporters were already urging him to jump into the race.
Evan McMullin, a 2016 presidential candidate from Utah who has also been critical of Trump, immediately urged Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, to run.
Hatch’s announcement came the same day Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Bill Shuster, chairman of the House Transportation Committee, announced he also would bow out at the end of his term this year.
