Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday battled over the propriety of questioning Peter Phipps, a nominee for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, about his membership in a Catholic fraternal organization.

Phipps took a seat on the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania only six months ago. Before that, he was senior trial counsel in the federal programs branch at the Justice Department's Civil Division, and spent three years as an associate at Jones Day, where he focused on civil litigation. He got his law degree from Stanford Law School.

In 2015, Phipps argued before the Third Circuit in National Collegiate Athletic Association v. Christie, which concerned New Jersey's 2014 law repealing certain prohibitions on sports gambling. Arguing on behalf of the DOJ, Phipps advocated for enforcing the federal Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, which bans states from authorizing sports betting. The appellate court eventually agreed with Phipps and struck down New Jersey's law, finding that it violated PASPA.