When Stephen Breyer appears before the Senate Judiciary Committee for confirmation to the Supreme Court, it will be like old home week.
Breyer was chief counsel for the committee in 1979 and 1980, is well known and liked by senior members and has a reputation for fairness and honesty among Democrats and Republicans.
The committee's familiarity with Breyer was a major selling point for President Clinton.
Breyer's "real strength is the way he worked with those of us who were in the minority in '79 and '80," Judiciary Committee member Alan Simpson, R-Wyo., said Sunday on ABC's This Week with David Brinkley. "He was very kind to me and able with me as I was learning the ropes."
Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, also on the committee, praised Breyer for his political skills.
"He was able to bring together Republicans and Democrats on one of the most contentious committees on Capitol Hill," Hatch said on CBS's Face the Nation. "He was honest, he was decent, he was moderate."
Certainly, Breyer will be asked detailed questions on a range of issues - including the right to privacy, civil rights and the death penalty - that have become the custom at Supreme Court confirmation hearings.
He also faces questions peculiar to his own record, including his support for deregulation.
Breyer helped engineer the deregulation of the trucking and airline industries in the 1970s.
He detailed his views in a book titled Breaking the Vicious Circle: Toward Effective Risk Regulation - which Sen. Howard Metzenbaum, D-Ohio, has already criticized.
But committee members think the confirmation process will be more ritualistic than surprising.
"He'll be confirmed easily, I suspect, before the August recess," said Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.
Breyer went before the committee once before - on Nov. 17, 1980, shortly after Ronald Reagan's election - as Democrats tried to accomplish as much as possible before the GOP took control of the Senate.
Breyer was approved for a judgeship on the federal appeals court in Boston without opposition from Republicans.
Part of his appeal has been that Republicans view Breyer as a jurist rather than a politician with an agenda, the very concerns that derailed Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt's chances for nomination.
These are also the concerns that have led some Democrats to criticize the president for not fighting for a candidate in whom he believed deeply.
"I think there is something very healthy about taking politics out of the process of confirming people for the Supreme Court," said Lani Guinier, a guest on Brinkley, whose nomination to a top Justice Department post was withdrawn by Clinton after she came under political attack.
"On the other hand," she said, "I think that it's important to acknowledge that the cost of playing it safe . . . is also the price of a Supreme Court that is not a force for social change."
