Orrin Hatch: “I rise today to pay tribute to Jim Lyons, a longtime staffer on Capitol Hill--my staffer--and a fixture in tax policy…”

“I rise today to pay tribute to Jim Lyons, a longtime staffer on Capitol Hill--my staffer--and a fixture in tax policy here in DC, who passed away on September 29 of this year. James Tancill Lyons was born on March 7, 1973, to Stephen and Ann Lyons, both natives of the DC-Virginia area with longstanding ties to the local community. Growing up in Springfield, VA, Jim was an accomplished athlete, excelling in both baseball and basketball. Oddly, for a sports fan in the DC area, his favorite football team was the Dallas Cowboys--a decision he made consciously because his older brother, Stephen, was a big Redskins fan. Jim was also a great student, eventually graduating summa cum laude from James Madison University. He went to law school at the University of Texas, where he made the Editing Committee of the Texas Journal of Business Law and won a scholarship for being the best tax law student in his class after pulling the top grade in his business associations, income tax, international tax, corporate tax, and estate and gift tax classes. After law school, he earned a clerkship at the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and then got a job working for Cleary Gottlieb, one of the finest law firms in the country. Of course, you would never guess any of this if you knew Jim.…”