1. Return to civility.

Will Sen. John McCain’s dramatic vote killing the Republican health care bill and his emotional plea for a return to bipartisan cooperation end the gridlock in Washington? It won’t be easy, but there is some hope. A few moderates in Congress have begun a bipartisan conversation about health care, but too many of their colleagues remain entrenched in partisan positions.

It wasn’t always like this. I was reminded recently of the time when compromise flourished in Washington when I attended the 90th birthday celebration in Urbana of former U.S. Rep. Clarence J. “Bud” Brown, a Republican who represented the Seventh District of Ohio, just east of Dayton, from 1965 to 1983.

During the national energy crisis in the 1970s, Congress was controlled by Democrats, but Brown had a key post as the ranking Republican on the House Energy Subcommittee. President Carter’s legislative proposals were highly controversial, and the two parties were deeply divided, as with health care today.

Brown often won over some Democrats whose state interests aligned with the Republicans’ free market principles, which induced the subcommittee chairman, U.S. Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., to compromise with Brown in order to get anything done.

When President Carter signed the National Energy Act on Nov. 9, 1978, this massive legislative achievement had Brown’s fingerprints all over it.

What would it take to break today’s gridlock? Leaders would need to do three things: Today, Republicans and Democrats won’t work together and don’t like each other. The civility that allowed political foes to respect each other and to work together has been lost. Brown and Dingell tried to outfox each other at every turn, but when the legislative maneuverings were ended for the day, they walked down the halls of the Rayburn House Office Building arm-in-arm, joking and laughing. Both were, coincidentally, sons of congressmen, and they respected the institution, revered the country, and understood each other.