( CNN ) -- Cold weather has delayed spring in Washington , but we can detect a clear warming trend in our politics . To be sure , the distance between the Obama administration and congressional Republicans remains vast , executive and judicial nominations remain blocked by an unprecedented number of filibusters and major legislative accomplishments are still months away . But the ice of gridlock is starting to thaw . Evidence of a healthier , more normal politics is beginning to reappear , centered in the Senate , our political institution that has declined the longest and the furthest . Congress has been in session only a few weeks , but the Senate has already passed its first budget in four years , after finding compromises to avoid the fiscal cliff and the `` nuclear option . '' Across the range of tough issues , serious legislative work is moving forward , usually on a bipartisan basis . Eight senators , led by Democrat Chuck Schumer and Republicans John McCain , Lindsey Graham and Marco Rubio , have made significant progress toward an agreement on immigration . The Judiciary Committee has reported the first major gun control legislation since 1994 , though its fate is far from certain . Democrat Carl Levin , joined by McCain , released a devastating report on the abusive trading practices of JPMorgan Chase . Freshman Democrats Elizabeth Warren and Sherrod Brown have expressed similar views as have Republicans Bob Corker and Chuck Grassley on the dangers of `` too big to fail '' banks . Democrat Max Baucus , Senate Finance Committee chairman , and Republican Dave Camp , House Ways and Means chairman , have accelerated their effort , started two years ago , to enact the first major tax reform legislation since 1986 . The atmosphere is palpably better . President Barack Obama 's `` charm offensive '' on Capitol Hill won approval from many Republicans . Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas , who after meeting with the president in 2010 , called him `` thin- skinned '' and recommended that he `` take valium , '' praised him generously this time around for the substantive meeting on the budget and related economic issues . Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell , who famously declared that defeating Obama was his highest priority , has this year shown much more graciousness , respect and even occasional humor . Two factors are most responsible for the improvement . First , it turns out that elections do have consequences . Obama 's decisive re-election , coupled with what amounted to a national landslide won by the Senate Democrats , has forced the Republicans into a period of reassessment and repositioning . Of course , some Republicans still believe that their party lost because its right wing views were did not come through clearly enough . But most Republicans recognize that the party 's combination of extremism and obstruction proved to be a losing strategy . They know the Republican brand is in deep trouble . The election results seemed to have convinced at least some of the Senate Republicans that finding areas in which to cooperate with the president is necessary . But the second factor , less understood than the impact of election returns , is just as important . By the end of 2012 , for many returning senators and those newly elected , dismay about the Senate has hardened into disgust and determination to change it . Across the political spectrum , senators are fed up with lurching from crisis to crisis , leaders dictating straight party votes , endless filibusters and constant failure to address the nation 's problems . Sen. Jeff Sessions , R-Alabama , compared the Senate to `` the Russian Duma ... an endless series of secret conclaves .. , with meetings everywhere but in the committee room or the open air of the Senate floor . '' Sen. Barbara Mikulski , D-Maryland , took pride in the `` zone of civility '' created by the increasing number of women senators . Sen. Schumer , D-New York , longingly `` looked forward to the good old days when we had major legislation go through committees . '' The shorthand for what the overwhelming number of senators want is `` regular order '' -- legislation that results from committee consideration , vigorous debate , the opportunity to offer amendments and hard bargaining to reach principled compromise -- and the Senate is changing as its leaders respond to the members ' frustration and anger . Legislating in our diverse , contentious country , with our system of separation of powers , has never been , and will never be , easy . Former Sen. Gary Hart once described the great Senate of the 1970s as `` a kind of controlled madhouse . '' The path to major legislative accomplishments is always treacherous and strewn with seemingly insurmountable obstacles . Today , the partisan divide is much deeper and the political culture far more vitriolic than 20 or 30 years ago . Although senators can not choose the era in which they serve , they can choose the way they approach their work and they can determine the way the Senate functions . It does n't take much time , or that many people , to change the Senate . Hopefully , day by day , that change is starting to happen . The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Ira Shapiro .
Ira Shapiro : Kansas is seeing a surprising change in political climate . After the 1970s of gridlock , Two parties making progress on issues such as immigration . He says much of the change is coming from members of the Congress . Shapiro : Senators want a return to days when Senate actually functioned .