The 107th session of the United States Congress was marked by heavy partisanship and political divisiveness. After one of the most bitterly contested presidential elections in history and with an almost evenly divided Senate throughout the session, neither party was able to push through an effective agenda or create satisfactory compromises on some of the country’s biggest issues.

Members of the Senate and House of Representatives went home Friday without completing plans to create a Department of Homeland Security, adding an adequate prescription drug benefit to Medicaid, fashioning a comprehensive national energy policy or reauthorizing the landmark 1996 welfare reform legislation. Though President George W. Bush did push through relatively large-scale education reform and $1.35 billion in top-heavy tax cuts, this congressional session was marked by political gamesmanship and partisan strife, representing the country’s divided nature.

But partisanship may not have been such a bad thing this session. The time period between 2000 and 2002 may prove to be a huge turning point in our nation’s history and it should comfort Americans that, despite seeming gridlock and a lack of productivity, their elected officials did not abandon their ideological anchors and sink votes into radical changes without seriously considering important policy alternatives.

Though Republican Senate candidates will spend much of the next month trying to convince Americans that Democrats are to blame for the government gridlock, Democrats should be praised for maintaining their ground on many of the session’s most important and momentous pieces of legislation.

Senate Democrats refused to approve legislation creating a new Department of Homeland Security without provision for important civil service protections and stopped Republican attempts to pass a new national energy policy, which would have included plans to drill for oil in the Alaskan National Wildlife Reserve. They were unwavering in their insistence on increased child care spending in Congressional attempts to renew the country’s six-year-old welfare program and insistent on not leaving a Medicaid drug benefit up to private companies. All four pieces of legislation could have made for precedent-setting changes to United States policy, but Democrats avoided shrinking in the face of public dissatisfaction with gridlock and maintained their ideological prerogatives.

However, three of the session’s most damaging pieces of legislation were passed because of a lack of adequately articulated dissent. President Bush was able to push through an early-session round of tax cuts heavily weighted toward the country’s wealthy citizens, which was followed shortly thereafter by government deficits. Both houses of Congress quickly passed legislation decreasing civil liberties protections and increasing the power of the executive branch after the calamitous events of Sept. 11, likely because members of both houses feared political divisiveness after such a tragedy. And just two weeks ago, with midterm elections quickly approaching, Senate Democrats caved to political pressure and helped pass a joint resolution giving President Bush broad power to go to war with Iraq without adequate provision for international cooperation.

In the end, Republicans may be able to spin Congressional gridlock in their favor because Democrats were unable to convince Americans their dissent was well-intentioned. Though, with the swearing in of the 108th congress, we may see an end to the entrenched partisanship that has marked this session, so too will we likely see a clearly partisan mark on several defining areas of national policy.

With partisanship comes the competition of ideas. Ironically, because of Congressional Democrats’ intensely protective partisanship over the past two years, we may see a more silenced group of dissenters for at least the next two years.