Carl Hatch (1889-1963) was a Democratic Party politician from New Mexico who represented the Land of Enchantment in the United States Senate from 1933 until 1949. Hatch was born in Kirwin, Kansas on November 27, 1889, and attended public schools in Kansas and Oklahoma. In 1912 he graduated from the Cumberland University law department; in that year he was also admitted to the bar, whereupon he began practice in Eldorado, Oklahoma. In 1916 he moved to Clovis, New Mexico, where he continued his practice; from 1917 to 1918 he served as the state's assistant attorney general. He was the state collector of internal revenue from 1919 to 1921. From 1923 to 1929 Hatch served as the district judge of the ninth judicial district of New Mexico; from 1930 to 1933 he was a member of the state board of bar examiners.
In 1933, he was appointed to fill out the U.S. Senate term of Sam G. Bratton, who had resigned to accept a judicial post; he was elected in his own right in 1934, and reelected in 1936 and 1942. He served until 1949, choosing not to be renominated in 1948. He is best remembered for authoring the Hatch Act of 1939 and 1940, which served to prevent federal employees from engaging in political activity. He also served as the chairman of the Committee on Privileges and Elections, and served on the Committee on Public Lands and Surveys. In 1949 Hatch was appointed United States district judge for the district of New Mexico, in which capacity he served until retiring in 1963. He died in Albuquerque on September 15, 1963, and is interred in Fairview Park Cemetery.
