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Attorney General Eric Holder on Wednesday said he hopes he will have a respectful dialogue with Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) on Justice Department matters while the congressman holds the gavel to the House Judiciary Committee.

Lamar Smith and Eric Holder (Main Justice)

Holder said that despite their differences, he has “a pretty good relationship” with Smith, who will replace Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) as House Judiciary Committee chairman in January. Smith, currently the top Republican on the panel, has butted heads often with the Attorney General over  key law enforcement matters, including national security issues.

“I hope that we’ll have a chance to focus on things … that are not going to be politically attractive, but will be of substance and things that have an impact on the day to day lives of the American people,” Holder said at an unrelated news conference on civil lawsuits stemming from the BP oil spill.

The incoming chairman said that efforts to enforce immigration laws, reform the patent system, fight child sexual exploitation, combat lawsuit abuse and improve national security are at the top of his agenda.

Smith has been particularly critical of Holder’s support for the reading of constitutional Miranda warnings to terrorism suspects and his now-withdrawn decision to try self-proclaimed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and alleged accomplices in a New York federal court. The Barack Obama administration is now considering the use of military commissions as an option for the prosecutions of those Guantanamo Bay detainees after Republicans and Democrats raised concerns about Holder’s initial proposal.

The incoming chairman and his Republican colleagues have stepped up their attacks on the Attorney General’s support for using civilian courts to prosecute some terrorism suspects after a federal jury’s acquittal last month of Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Guantanamo Bay detainee, on all but one count in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Africa.

The House, which is still under Democratic control, last week passed legislation that would ban the Obama administration from prosecuting Guantanamo Bay detainees in civilian courts until Sept. 30. The provision was part of a must-pass continuing resolution to fund the government in the current fiscal year, since Congress has not approved regular appropriations bills. The full Senate has yet to consider the legislation.

Smith has also expressed concerns about the DOJ’s handling of a controversial voter intimidation case involving members of the New Black Panther Party. But he has not indicated whether his committee will look into the issue next year.

A Fox News producer asked Holder on Wednesday if he was referring to the New Black Panther Party case, when he described the type of work he hopes to see from House Judiciary Committee.

Holder – who was accused by conservatives in the Black Panther case of having a policy of not pursuing civil rights cases when whites are the victims — mouthed some inaudible words in response to the Fox News reporter as he headed out the door from the news conference.