Daniel Lipinski

Daniel William Lipinski (born July 15, 1966) is an American politician and political scientist who served eight terms as the U.S. Representative for Illinois’s 3rd congressional district from January 3, 2005, to January 3, 2021. A member of the Democratic Party and of the Blue Dog Coalition, he was widely regarded as one of the most socially conservative Democrats in Congress. During his time in the House of Representatives, Lipinski participated in the legislative process through service on key committees and caucuses, representing a district that was historically home to many “Reagan Democrats” but whose Democratic electorate became increasingly liberal over the course of his tenure.

Lipinski was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Rose Marie (née Lapinski) and former U.S. Congressman Bill Lipinski, who also represented Illinois’s 3rd congressional district. He grew up on the Southwest Side of Chicago and attended St. Ignatius College Prep, from which he graduated in 1984. He went on to earn a B.S. in mechanical engineering from the Robert R. McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science at Northwestern University in 1988, followed by an M.S. in engineering-economic systems from Stanford University in 1989. Pursuing an academic interest in government and public policy, he later completed a Ph.D. in political science at Duke University in 1998.

Before entering Congress, Lipinski combined academic work with practical political and governmental experience. In the summer of 1992, he interned at the United States Department of Labor. From 1993 to 1995 he served as an intern for U.S. Representative George E. Sangmeister, and from 1995 to 1996 he worked as a legislative staff member for U.S. Representative Jerry Costello. He joined Cook County State’s Attorney Richard A. Devine’s campaign during the 1996 election season and later served on Devine’s transition staff. After a brief period on the staff of then-U.S. Representative Rod Blagojevich, Lipinski became a communications staff aide to then-House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt. He entered academia in 2000, teaching at the University of Notre Dame from 2000 to 2001, and in 2001 he joined the faculty of the University of Tennessee, where he remained until his election to Congress in 2004.

Lipinski’s path to Congress was closely tied to his father’s long-standing role in local and national politics. In 2004, Bill Lipinski ran for re-nomination in the Democratic primary for the 3rd district and easily won. After securing the nomination, he announced his retirement. As the Democratic committeeman for Chicago’s 23rd Ward, an area largely coextensive with the Chicago portion of the 3rd district, he was able to influence the state Democratic Party to select his son to replace him on the November ballot. The decision was controversial because Daniel Lipinski had not lived regularly in Illinois since 1989 and had never run for elected office, but it allowed him to avoid the competitive Democratic primary, which was effectively the decisive contest in the heavily Democratic district. He subsequently purchased a home in Western Springs, Illinois, as his residence within the district. In the 2004 general election he defeated Republican Ryan Chlada, beginning a congressional career that would see him re-elected seven more times.

During his eight terms in Congress, Lipinski served on two major House committees: the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure and the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. On Transportation and Infrastructure, he became the most senior member from Illinois and served on the Subcommittee on Aviation, the Subcommittee on Highways and Transit, and the Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials, chairing the latter. On the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, he previously served as Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Research (later Research and Technology) and sat on the Subcommittee on Energy; his district includes Argonne National Laboratory, a major federal research facility. He was active in numerous caucuses, including the Blue Dog Coalition, the Congressional Arts Caucus, the Afterschool Caucuses, the United States Congressional International Conservation Caucus, the Veterinary Medicine Caucus, the Climate Solutions Caucus, and the Problem Solvers Caucus. He founded and co-chaired the Congressional Buy American Caucus, co-chaired the bipartisan Congressional Pro-life Caucus, and participated in the Blue Collar Caucus.

Lipinski built a legislative record that reflected both his interest in manufacturing and infrastructure and his distinctive ideological profile within the Democratic Party. He authored H.R. 2447, the American Manufacturing Competitiveness Act of 2013, which required the federal government to produce a National Strategic Plan for Advanced Manufacturing every four years, analogous to the Quadrennial Defense Review. The measure, described by one witness as the first comprehensive American manufacturing strategy since Alexander Hamilton’s 1791 “Report on Manufactures,” became law as part of the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, FY2015, leading to the publication of the first National Strategic Plan for Advanced Manufacturing in October 2018. He had earlier introduced the American Manufacturing Competitiveness Act on June 12, 2012, which called for policies to support products qualifying for the “Made in U.S.A.” label, including the creation of a Manufacturing Strategy Board within the Department of Commerce. The House passed that bill on September 12, 2012, by a vote of 339–77. Lipinski also promoted what he termed a “Five-Point Jobs Plan,” aimed at strengthening manufacturing, modernizing infrastructure, educating the workforce, enforcing fair trade, and investing in innovation.

On social and cultural issues, Lipinski was among the most conservative Democrats in the House. He opposed legalized abortion and embryonic stem cell research and was a co-chair of the bipartisan Congressional Pro-life Caucus. He did not endorse President Barack Obama for reelection in 2012 and was one of 39 House Democrats to vote against the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) when it passed the House on March 21, 2010, citing, among other reasons, concerns about abortion-related provisions; he had previously supported an earlier version of the bill with more stringent abortion funding restrictions. In October 2013 he was the primary sponsor of H.R. 3425, which would have delayed ACA penalties until four months after the program’s website was fully functional. Although he opposed the ACA’s passage, he later stated in 2017 that he was working to prevent Republicans from repealing the law. In January 2020, Lipinski joined Democratic Representative Collin Peterson, 166 Republican representatives, and 39 Republican senators in submitting an amicus curiae brief urging the Supreme Court to reconsider and potentially overturn Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. He consistently argued that the Democratic Party was moving too far to the left, a trend he believed contributed to Donald Trump’s election as president.

Lipinski’s record on civil liberties, national security, and LGBTQ+ issues reflected a blend of social conservatism and selective support for anti-discrimination measures. He supported strong counter-terrorism and domestic surveillance laws, voting for the Patriot Act reauthorization of 2006, the Protect America Act of 2007, the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, the Patriot Act Extension of 2011, and the FISA Extension of 2012, and he voted against the Amash Amendment to the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act that sought to limit surveillance authorities, making him one of only two Democratic lawmakers to back such measures to that extent. He opposed recognition of same-sex marriage until the Supreme Court’s 2015 decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, supported the Defense of Marriage Act in 2011, and backed the First Amendment Defense Act, which would have allowed certain businesses to refuse services to same-sex couples on religious grounds. At the same time, he voted for the Hate Crimes Expansion bill in 2009, supported repeal of the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy in 2010, and voted for the Equality Act in 2019. Lipinski has stated that he personally opposes same-sex marriage but accepts the post-Obergefell status quo “because it has been declared the law of the land,” and in 2016 he supported a Republican-backed version of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

In foreign policy and human rights, Lipinski took particular interest in democratic movements abroad. Following the 2014 Hong Kong class boycott campaign and Umbrella Movement, he joined Senator Sherrod Brown and Representative Chris Smith in introducing the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, which sought to update the United States–Hong Kong Policy Act of 1992. He publicly supported Hong Kong’s autonomy and the pro-democracy protests, emphasizing that free and fair elections by universal suffrage were a guarantee China had made to Hong Kong and warning that any use of aggressive force or efforts to undermine Hong Kong’s unique governmental structure would seriously affect China’s relations with democratic nations.

Throughout his congressional career, Lipinski’s voting record combined social conservatism with generally pro-labor and pro-environment positions. His district, with a Cook Partisan Voting Index of D+6, long stood as the most conservative of the Chicago-area districts, and it was one of only two Chicago districts carried by Ronald Reagan in the 1980 presidential election. He maintained a lifetime score of 90 percent from the League of Conservation Voters, received an “F” grade from the National Rifle Association, and held a 91 percent lifetime rating from the AFL-CIO. Despite his frequent breaks with his party on high-profile social and cultural issues, he voted with the Democratic Party approximately 87 percent of the time while in Congress. In December 2020, during the lame-duck session after both he and President Trump had been defeated, he was one of only two Democrats to vote against H.R. 9051, which would have increased coronavirus economic relief checks from $600 to $2,000, even as 44 Republicans joined most Democrats in supporting the measure.

Lipinski’s electoral fortunes reflected the ideological evolution of his district. He consistently won re-election by wide margins in his early campaigns, taking 55 percent of the vote in the 2006 Democratic primary against two opponents and 77 percent in the general election against Republican Raymond Wardingley. He defeated three primary challengers in 2008 and won 73 percent of the vote against Republican Michael Hawkins in the general election, and in 2010 he defeated Republican Michael Bendas with more than 70 percent of the vote. As the district’s Democratic electorate shifted leftward, however, he faced increasingly competitive primaries. In 2018 he narrowly defeated progressive challenger Marie Newman in the Democratic primary, 51.2 percent to 48.8 percent. Newman challenged him again in 2020, joined by Rush Darwish and Charles Hughes, while another challenger, Abe Matthew, withdrew and endorsed Newman. In that race, Newman outspent Lipinski, $2,732,742.44 to $2,170,908.37, and outside spending by Super PACs also favored her, $1,557,969 to $371,941 for Lipinski. Newman won the 2020 Democratic primary, ending Lipinski’s eight-term tenure in the House of Representatives.