Senator Orrin Hatch’s Voting Record

The Record

A look at key votes Senator Hatch (R-UT) has cast from 1979 to 2012…

  • Hatch Co-Sponsored PIPA
  • Hatch voted for the controversial National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA)
  • Hatch voted against banning earmarks
  • Hatch cosponsored the Individual Mandate for health care
  • Hatch voted for Medicare Part D, the largest entitlement expansion since the Great Society… until ObamaCare
  • Hatch voted for and was lead sponsor of SCHIP, a massive expansion of government health insurance
  • Hatch voted for the Wall Street bailout (TARP)
  • Hatch voted for the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bailout
  • Hatch voted to continue the auto bailout
  • Hatch voted to increase the debt ceiling 16 times by a total of $7.6 trillion
  • Hatch voted against the interstate sale of health insurance
  • Hatch voted to establish the Department of Education, a federal takeover of our education system
  • Hatch repeatedly voted for the expansion of government health care programs
  • Hatch repeatedly voted for wasteful and pork-laden farm subsidy programs
  • Hatch repeatedly voted for bills filled with pet projects and giveaways

2011 Key Votes

2009 Key Votes

  • Roll Call 5: Hatch refused to vote against eliminating the second round of TARP bailout funds.
  • Roll Call 90: Hatch voted to protect the power of special interest trial lawyers to gouge fees from the American taxpayers.
  • Roll Call 148: Hatch voted to allow taxpayer dollars to be taken to bail out auto manufacturers.
  • Roll Call 272: Hatch voted to use taxpayer money to promote travel

2008 Key Votes

  • Roll Call 10: Hatch voted for this stimulus bill, which expanded the welfare state, increased FHA loan limits, and encouraged more risky loans from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
  • Roll Call 75: Hatch voted against establishing an earmark moratorium to end the gratuitous and corrosive process of pork-barrel spending.
  • Roll Call 153: Hatch voted against removing a $300 billion earmark in FHA Insurance.
  • Roll Call 186: Hatch voted to bailout the mortgage industry, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, nationalizing much of the mortgage industry, raising the ceiling on risky loans, and instituting another $4 billion housing subsidy program.
  • Roll Call 213: Hatch voted for the infamous Wall Street bailout (TARP), which allocated $700 billion in taxpayer funds to buy “toxic assets”.

2007 Key Votes

  • Roll Call 42: Hatch voted for Big Labor’s job-killing minimum wage hike.
  • Roll Call 105: Hatch voted to increase taxes in order to reauthorize and expand SCHIP.
  • Roll Call 307: Hatch voted to expand the federal government’s role in health care through reauthorizing SCHIP.
  • Roll Call 347: Hatch voted for this pork-laden bill which contained over 900 special interest earmarks and contained excessive spending.
  • Roll Call 354: Hatch voted to increase the debt limit by $850 billion.
  • Roll Call 400: Hatch voted to spend more taxpayer money on the failed passenger rail monopoly.
  • Roll Call 403: Hatch voted to increase funding for SCHIP by $50 billion.
  • Roll Call 434: Hatch voted for a massive $300 billion subsidy for agriculture businesses.
  • Roll Call 425: Hatch voted for this flawed energy bill which contained ethanol subsidies, and marked another victory for special interests and proponents of higher taxes and mandates in our energy policy.

2006 Key Votes

  • Roll Call 13: Hatch voted with the special interest trial lawyers to create a new system for resolving claims of injury caused by asbestos exposure.
  • Roll Call 52: Hatch voted for a gigantic $500 million earmark for Amtrak.
  • Roll Call 54: Hatch voted to increase the debt limit by $781 billion
  • Roll Call 81: Hatch voted against including federal entities in the definition of earmarks.
  • Roll Call 97: Hatch voted against another measure to prevent wasteful increases in spending.
  • Roll Call 99: Hatch voted to suspend consideration for an amendment that would cut rail line pork.
  • Roll Call 100: Hatch voted against eliminating sea food promotion pork-barrel spending.

2005 Key Votes

  • Roll Call 118: Hatch voted to increase funds in the highway bill.
  • Roll Call 138: Hatch voted for an arbitrarily-mandated ethanol subsidy which even Al Gore has recently declared a failure and a politically-motivated handout to the first Presidential primary state, Iowa.
  • Roll Call 220: Hatch voted for this notorious $300 billion highway spending bill stuffed with nearly 6,500 earmarks, exemplifying the worst of Republican excesses just before they lost control of Congress.
  • Roll Call 262: Hatch voted against cutting the infamous “bridge to nowhere” in Alaska, which was the leading symbol of government waste and profligate spending in the 109th Congress.
  • Roll Call 286: Hatch voted against responsibly reducing non-defense discretionary spending.

2004 Key Votes

  • Roll Call 65: Hatch voted for more superfluous government spending and mandates on states.
  • Roll Call 77: Hatch voted against permanently halting taxes on electric commerce imposed by the Internet Tax Freedom Act.
  • Roll Call 213: Hatch voted to increase the debt limit by $800 billion.

2003 Key Votes

  • Roll Call 202: Hatch voted to increase the debt limit by $984 billion.
  • Roll Call 205: Hatch voted to keep unnecessary and expensive military bases open.
  • Roll Call 409: Hatch voted to increase federal control over state and local elections.
  • Roll Call 459: Hatch voted for Medicare Part D, a huge entitlement program which added trillions in unfunded liabilities to Medicare.

2002 Key Votes

  • Roll Call 141: Hatch voted to quintuple the funding for AIDS programs in Africa, from $100 million to $500 million.
  • Roll Call 148: Hatch voted to increase the debt limit by $450 billion.

1998 Key Votes

  • Roll Call 123: Hatch voted to include a member of the IRS employees’ union on an Internal Revenue Service Oversight Board.
  • Roll Call 143: Hatch voted to increase the tobacco tax.
  • Roll Call 256: Hatch voted against accountability measures regarding how the International Monetary Fund’s uses U.S. Aid.
  • Roll Call 269: Hatch voted to continue taxpayer funding of the NEA.

1997 Key Votes

  • S.674: Hatch teamed up with Ted Kennedy to cosponsor the Children’s Health Insurance Provides Security (CHIPS) Act.
  • H.R.2015: Hatch voted to increase the debt limit by $450 billion and create the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), the largest expansion of taxpayer-funded health insurance coverage for children in the U.S. since Medicaid.

1996 Key Votes

  • H.R.3136: Hatch voted to increase the debt limit by $600 billion.

1995 Key Votes

  • Roll Call 408: Hatch voted against requiring the most able-bodied, non-elderly food stamp recipients to work for 40 hours during every 4-week period.
  • Roll Call 601: Hatch voted against legislation which provided congressional oversight of U.S. taxpayer dollars sent to murky and volatile regions such as war-stricken Bosnia.

1993 Key Votes

  • S.1770: Hatch supported a government take-over of health care when he cosponsored legislation that contained an individual mandate.
  • Roll Call 317: Hatch voted against an amendment proposed by Senator Nickles (R-OK), which would have prohibited the use of funds to support U.S. armed forces under the command of United Nations commanders.
  • Roll Call 389: Hatch voted to kill this amendment introduced by Senator Stevens that would have reduced the costly environmental and labor regulations imbedded in NAFTA.

1992 Key Votes

  • Roll Call 264: Hatch voted to override President Bush’s veto of a bill that expanded government encroachment in television by regulating the cable television industry.

1990 Key Votes

  • Roll Call 269: Hatch voted to excessively appropriate $11.5 billion more than was necessary to fund the departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and other related agencies.
  • Roll Call 292: Hatch voted for this tax and spend laden budget, which at the time amounted to the largest tax increase in U.S. history.
  • Roll Call 307: Hatch voted against prohibiting the National Endowment for the Arts from using tax payer money for morally-depraved purposes.

1989 Key Votes

  • Roll Call 94: Hatch voted to vastly expand the federal government’s role in the area of child care, infringing on the abilities of states and localities to handle individual family problems.
  • Roll Call 173: Hatch voted for the expansion of the federal government’s role in regulating and determining workplace discrimination.

1987 Key Votes

  • Roll Call 19: Hatch voted to override President Reagan’s veto of a bill that reauthorized the Clean Water Act of 1972 and spent $20 billion in additional appropriations to implement mandates and regulations.
  • Roll Call 167: Hatch voted to vastly expand government and bureaucracy by creating a new federal interagency arm.
  • Roll Call 262: Hatch voted to increase the debt limit by $448 billion.

1986 Key Votes

  • H.R.5395: Hatch voted to increase the debt limit by $32.3 billion.
  • H.R.2005: Hatch voted to authorize $9 billion for waste removal programs. This “superfund” is largely duplicative and wasteful and could be handled more efficiently through the states.

1985 Key Votes

  • Roll Call 371: Hatch voted to increase the debt limit by $174.9 billion.

1984 Key Votes

  • H.AMDT.798: Hatch voted against striking funds from the NEA.
  • H.R.5712: Hatch voted to continue funding for the special interest Legal Services Corporation.
  • H. J. RES. 654: Hatch voted to increase the debt limit by $250 billion.

1983 Key Votes

  • Roll Call 115: Hatch voted to increase the debt limit by $98.8 billion.
  • S.AMDT.2633: Hatch voted for a $25 billion bill to bailout the perpetually failing HUD and TIME programs, increasing government intervention in the housing sector.

1982 Key Votes

  • H.R.4961: Hatch voted for what was the largest tax increase in history at that time.
  • H. J. RES. 520: Senator Hatch voted to increase the debt limit by $890.2 billion.

1981 Key Votes

  • Roll Call 23: Hatch voted to increase the debt limit by $50 billion.
  • Roll Call 298: Hatch voted to increase the debt limit by $94 billion.
  • Roll Call 336: Hatch voted against cutting 5 percent of obligational spending from the Department of Interior Appropriations bill.

1980 Key Votes

  • Roll Call 354: Hatch voted against easing roadblocks and regulations for trucking firms.
  • H.R. 5192: Hatch voted to extend the authorization for federal higher education programs.

1979 Key Votes

 

For more information on Senator Orrin Hatch’s voting record, see The Hatch Record