WASHINGTON — Suddenly, bipartisanship has broken out on Capitol Hill.
On Iran, Medicare, education, and trade, Republicans and Democrats have come together to make deals, and that's something rarely seen lately.
''It's great,'' Republican Senator John Cornyn of Texas said after the Senate followed the House's lead last week in overwhelmingly passing a bill overhauling the Medicare payment system for doctors. ''There's just a huge pent-up demand to actually get something done, on both sides.''
The same day as the Medicare vote, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee unanimously approved legislation empowering Congress to review and possibly reject an emerging Iran nuclear pact.
Those breakthroughs were followed two days later by unanimous approval of a rewrite of the No Child Left Behind education law in the Senate Education Committee, and the announcement of a long-sought bipartisan deal allowing President Obama to negotiate trade accords for Congress' review.
Congress-watchers are applauding. ''Democracy had a pretty good week, and it's been a long time,'' said Jason Grumet, president of the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington.
But no one's declaring partisan bickering over, and the moment may not last long, especially as campaigning picks up ahead of next year's elections.
Even as lawmakers sealed deals on some issues, they were gridlocked elsewhere.
Obama, at a news conference Friday, highlighted the contradiction. He hailed ''some outbreaks of bipartisanship and common sense in Congress,'' and then bemoaned the Senate's delay in approving his nominee for attorney general, Loretta Lynch. ''There are times where the dysfunction in the Senate just goes too far,'' Obama said. ''Enough.''
Lynch may get a vote as soon as this week. Lawmakers seem to be close to a compromise on a human trafficking bill that has bogged down on a dispute over abortion, and Republican leaders had decided to put off the Lynch vote until the trafficking measure was resolved — a linkage Democrats decried.
That's the kind of partisan head-butting that appears likely to continue in the months ahead on some issues, such as negotiations on a combined House-Senate budget. Republican majorities in the House and Senate hailed passing balanced budgets last month, but the nonbinding bills were approved over the protests, and without the votes, of Democrats.
House Democrats also lamented as Republicans passed a repeal of the estate tax last week, though other low-profile IRS bills won bipartisan OK.
The new Congress got off to an ugly start when lawmakers came perilously close to partly shutting down the Department of Homeland Security because of GOP objections to Obama's executive actions on immigration.
Yet amid such familiar disputes, lawmakers have also found opportunities to get along. Grumet attributes the accomplishments in part to old-fashioned deal-making and an institutionwide desire to claim some achievements.