Name Thomas Jipping Role Counsel | Education Calvin College | |
Thomas L. Jipping is Chief Counsel to U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) on the Senate Judiciary Committee. He joined Senator Hatch's legislative office staff in 2003 and was promoted to his Judiciary Committee staff in 2007. In 2010, he served as Deputy Chief Counsel and Deputy Staff Director of the Senate Impeachment Trial Committee, created to conduct the impeachment trial of U.S. District Judge G. Thomas Porteous. Prior to his current post, Jipping was Senior Fellow in Legal Studies at Concerned Women for America and, from 1990-2002, Vice-President for Legal Policy and Director of the Center for Law & Democracy at the Free Congress Foundation, where he directed the Judicial Selection Monitoring Project.
His past positions include service as a consultant to the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Juvenile Justice & Delinquency Prevention, a law clerk for Judge William D. Hutchinson of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, and a student law clerk for Antonin Scalia when Scalia sat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and for Senior Judge Douglas W. Hillman of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan.
In addition to lecturing on policy and constitutional questions, Jipping has been a prolific author in various media. He is a proponent of federalist and originalist thought and his scholarship has been published in journals such as the Buffalo Law Review, University of Richmond Law Review, South Texas Law Review, Case Western Reserve Law Review, and the Texas Review of Law & Politics. His commentary has appeared in publications such as the Washington Times, Legal Times, Investor's Business Daily, Human Events, National Law Journal, USA Today, Miami Herald, Houston Chronicle, and Los Angeles Times.
He has made appearances—usually as a conservative commentator/analyst—on C-SPAN and various television programs including ABC's Good Morning America and Nightline, NBC's Today Show, and The Newshour with Jim Lehrer.
Jipping holds a B.A. with honors in political science from Calvin College and both a J.D. cum laude and an M.A. in political science from the State University of New York at Buffalo.