By Thomas Burr | Salt Lake City Tribune
Sen. Orrin Hatch, in his final address to the Senate as he prepares to leave office, said the chamber is in “crisis” and called for more civility in politics and respect for opposing views.
“On both the left and the right, the bar of decency has been set so low that jumping over it is no longer the objective,” Hatch said. “Limbo is the new name of the game. How low can you go? The answer, it seems, is always lower. All the evidence points to an unsettling truth: The Senate, as an institution, is in crisis, or at least may be in crisis.”
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The Utah Republican, who is retiring at the end of the year after serving 42 years, gave his prescription for what ails the Senate as finding common ground and working together, not against one another. He said the Senate’s problems trickle down to the national discourse, and Congress should be the example instead of feeding the divisiveness.
“If we are divided, then the nation is divided,” Hatch said. “If we abandon civility, then our constituents will follow. And so, to mend the nation, we must first mend the Senate. We must restore the culture of comity, compromise and mutual respect that used to exist here and still does in some respects. Both in our personal and public conduct, we must be the very change we want to see in the country. We must not be enemies but friends.”
