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I want to be confident that the Senator I help elect will confirm justices who respect the original intent of the Constitution. I’m not confident that Orrin Hatch is the person best prepared to accomplish that task.
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— Larry Meyers Utah Delegate, Washington County
Most importantly, he didn’t just confirm them, he wrote in his autobiography that Clinton asked him for advice on nominations for the Supreme Court. Hatch proudly states that he suggested two possibilities who could easily pass nomination: Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.80 These are hardly the actions of a constitutional conservative: “[It] was not a surprise when the President called to talk about the appointment and what he was thinking of doing. President Clinton indicated he was leaning toward nominating Bruce Babbitt, his Secretary of the Interior, a name that had been bouncing around in the press. Bruce, a well-known western Democrat, had been the governor of Arizona and a candidate for president in 1988. Although he had been a state attorney general back during the 1970s, he was known far more for his activities as a politician than as a jurist. Clinton asked for my reaction.
against Bruce, and there would be a great deal of resistance from the Republican side. I explained to the President that although he might prevail in the end, he should consider whether he wanted a tough, political battle over his first appointment to the Court. Our conversation moved to other potential candidates. I asked whether he had considered Judge Stephen Breyer of the First Circuit Court of Appeals or Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals. President Clinton indicated he had heard Breyer’s name but had not thought about Judge Ginsburg. I indicated I thought they would be confirmed easily. I knew them both and believed that, while liberal, they were highly honest and capable jurists and their confirmation would not embarrass the President. From my perspective, they were far better than the other likely candidates from a liberal Democrat administration. In the end, the President did not select Secretary Babbitt. Instead, he nominated Judge Ginsburg and Judge Breyer a year later, when Harry Blackmun retired from the Court. Both were confirmed with relative ease.”81 U.S. News and World Report describes both Breyer and Ginsburg as two of the most liberal Justices of the last 70 years.82 Orrin Hatch described radical liberal justice Ginsburg in the following way: “…a great scholar, a person of high integrity with good judicial temperament.”83 Orrin Hatch’s aide at the time, Edward Whelan, describes Ginsburg with very different language. He is also very candid about why Hatch supported Ginsburg.
I told him that confirmation would not be easy. At least one Democrat would probably vote
80. http://www.rightspeak.net/2011/03/time-to-retire-uncle-orrin.html; http://articles. latimes.com/1993-06-15/news/mn-3262_1_white-house-official; http://www. washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_07/006632.php 81. http://www.rightspeak.net/2011/03/time-to-retire-uncle-orrin.html; http:// thinkprogress.org/politics/2005/07/01/1228/how-clinton-treated-hatch/; http://www. washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_07/006632.php; Orrin Hatch, Square Peg: “Confessions of a Citizen-Senator”, Basic Books, 2002, Pg 180
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82. http://www.usnews.com/news/national/articles/2008/05/12/ranking-the-politics-ofsupreme-court-justices 83. http://www.deseretnews.com/article/295527/HATCH-SEES-EASY-TIME-FORGINSBURG-IN-SENATE.html