Washington • If not for a $6,000 pay raise Sen. Orrin Hatch supported for Supreme Court justices, he might have been one of them.
After Associate Justice Lewis Powell announced his retirement in 1987, President Ronald Reagan considered naming Hatch to the high court. Reagan's short list for the spot was so small it included only Hatch and D.C. Court of Appeals Judge Robert Bork.
But Hatch, a Utah Republican and a Reagan favorite, had supported a pay raise for the high court and the Constitution forbids a member of Congress from taking an appointment for which the pay had been increased during that member’s term.