House Judiciary panel seeks bipartisan touch
By Molly K. Hooper - 01/18/11 06:23 AM ET

Lawmakers on a committee known for its intense partisanship are attempting a new approach.

Republican and Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee will break bread at a Wednesday meeting aimed at fostering bipartisanship. The forum will be headlined by Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer.

Such a meeting has been in the planning stages for quite some time, well before the Jan. 8 shooting in Tucson, Ariz., that killed six people and injured 13, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.).

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) said he has envisioned such a bipartisan retreat for the past four years.

In an interview with The Hill, Smith revealed that his plans to hold such an event were put on hold in late 2006 when Democrats won control of the House, denying him an opportunity to grab the gavel.

Since Republicans regained control of the majority, Smith says that he immediately started putting together a program to focus on bipartisanship.

With rare exception, partisanship has reigned in the House Judiciary Committee, a panel that impeached then-President Clinton in 1998 along party lines. A decade later, a Democratic-led committee investigated alleged war crimes by former President George W. Bush.

Smith late last year read an article in The New Yorker on Breyer’s work in the mid-1970s, when he served as counsel on the Senate Judiciary Committee under Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.).

The piece detailed the success that Kennedy achieved on major legislation because of bipartisanship, including deregulation of the airline industry.

Smith subsequently invited Breyer, who was nominated to the high court by Clinton, to speak to his committee.

“[Breyer] said yes,â€