Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast.

I'm Tamer Keath.

I cover the White House.

And I'm Nina Tottenberg.

I cover the Supreme Court.

And Nina, this is a treat.

You sat down to interview Justice Stephen Breyer this week.

At a moment that the Supreme Court is coming under a lot of scrutiny.

He has a new book out next week called The Authority of the Court and the Parallel of

Politics, we will get to that. But first, refresh us a bit on who the justice is and what role

he plays on this court.

Justice Breyer has served for 27 years on the court.

He is a member of the so-called Liberal Block.

But he is something of a pragmatist.

And he's a, what he calls a purposefulist.

That is that the whole idea of the Constitution is to enable government to function freely

and with the purpose that the legislature wants, that the people want democratically.

He has brokered a number of compromises on the court.

And he's disappointed liberals from time to time by not being very doctrinaire.

But he's also foiled attempts by some of the court's most hard-line conservatives to adopt

their point of view.

So he's played an interesting role, a balancing role on the court.

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