At critical juncture, lawmakers talk but are loath to cross political divide

By Karoun Demirjian

Sunday, Jan. 29, 2012 | 2 a.m.

The end of last year seemed as good a time as any for Congress to turn a corner. Congress almost ran off the rails at the close of 2011 over a two-month payroll tax extension, the latest in a series of partisan standoffs. And Republicans went public with infighting over which partisan battles to pick.

But who are we kidding? This is an election year, when policy considerations sometimes — cynics might say always — take a back seat to the political.

Last week was the first full week of business for the House and Senate. It was a busy one: President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address, the retirement of Arizona Rep. Gabby Giffords, not to mention the political establishment being overtaken with a newly competitive Republican presidential race after the South Carolina primary.

But after a holiday break and then spending time together listening to the same speeches, applauding the same colleagues and watching the same primary returns, there was plenty of lip service about cooperation but no apparent effort toward creating camaraderie.

“This year I hope we each find the courage and faith to listen and cooperate, as well,” Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said as he opened the new session of the Senate. “We won’t back down. ... We saw the results of Republican brinkmanship in December. ... I remind my Republican colleagues that not every discussion, not every matter we deal with should collapse into a fight.”

“There’s much we can and should do together,” replied Sen. Mitch McConnell, adding: “I hope [Democrats] haven’t given up on governing in favor of complaining and campaigning ... just because they can’t get everything they want.”

Even Obama, once criticized for being the conciliator-in-chief, is reinforcing his platitudes about togetherness with veiled threats.

“I will work with anyone in this chamber to build ... momentum,” he said during the State of the Union address. “But I intend to fight obstruction with action.”

And Nevada’s Senate candidates — Sen. Dean Heller and Rep. Shelley Berkley? A week into the session, the campaign barbs were already flying.

The country, as poll after poll shows, is disgusted with Congress. Approval ratings are in the single digits. Most Americans think the 2010 wave of change was a flop. Most Americans, if they could, would fire every incumbent lawmaker and start again from scratch.

Lawmakers, conscious of that, are striving to strike a note of bipartisan sensibility in their proposals, whether it’s Republicans arguing to link payroll tax cuts to pipeline contracts (you said you wanted to create jobs!) or Democrats pushing investments in clean energy (you said you wanted an all-of-the-above approach!).

There’s ample opportunity this year for some bipartisan deal-making to accompany the we-should-be-making-bipartisan-deals talk that’s far more commonplace: Congress has to pass a payroll tax-cut package, come up with a long-term tax code overhaul, and the president’s already promised to ask Congress to work on legislation to advance energy investment and mortgage assistance to help Americans avoid foreclosure.

But will lawmakers actually, publicly, cross lines to share the workload so they can eventually share the credit?

The stakes in 2012 are probably too high for that.