Franken, Hatch told Sotomayor their questions concern ‘millions’ back home

It’s standard political rhetoric to claim you speak for many. During hearings this week, both the Senate Judiciary Committee’s longest-serving member (Orrin Hatch of Utah) and its newest (Al Franken of Minnesota) boasted that their questions for Judge Sonia Sotomayor represented the concerns of “millions” of their constituents. Indeed, the U.S. Census counts 2.7 million people in Utah and 5.2 million in Minnesota. But how many really care about the senators’ questions?

Hatch seemed confident that his legalistic inquiries, touching on abortion, gun-rights and the original intent of the Constitution, are of concern to at least 2 million of the 2.7 million people he represents:

Judge, you’ve been great throughout this process, and I appreciate it. But I have some questions I’d like to ask, but I think you can answer yes or no. Of course, you can qualify if you feel like it. But I would like to get through these, because they’re important questions to me and millions of other people that I represent.

On two of his three questions, Hatch could be certain that at least one other person cared. He said those questions came from individual Utah citizens in response to his call for questions for Sotomayor.

Franken, however, hedged his bet a bit on whether “millions” of his 5.2 million constituents truly sweat the issue he was asking about — net neutrality:

OK. Well, then you know that [the 2005 Supreme Court decision known as] Brand X deregulated Internet access services … This is frightening. It’s frightening to me and to millions of my constituents. Or lots of my constituents.

Franken has been careful not to overstate his home-state support, frequently noting that more people voted against him than for him in November’s election (counting the votes for Republican Norm Coleman and the Independence Party’s Dean Barkley) and vowing to work to earn their trust.