A House Republican from Pennsylvania and a House Democrat from California said Sunday that they would work together to revisit federal and state laws on mental illness.
And the House speaker, John A. Boehner, used the phrase ?job-destroying? instead of ?job-killing? in reference to the Democrats? health care overhaul in a speech to colleagues on Saturday ? a subtle but pointed shift in tone, though not in substance.
As the House prepares to resume regular legislative business on Tuesday, the shooting in Arizona that killed six in a failed assassination attempt on Representative Gabrielle Giffords has shifted the political dynamic in Washington and across the nation, with lawmakers embracing a new civility.
No one is suggesting that the fierce policy disagreements will disappear or that old animosities will not remain just beneath the new, courteous veneer. But lawmakers said they expected a leveling of the discourse on even the most divisive issues, like cutting spending, whether to raise the federal debt limit and the Republican measure to repeal the Democrats? health care overhaul, which the House is set to vote on this week.
?I think the tenor on anything that happens in the House is going to be a little different,? Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the No. 3 House Republican, told reporters at a Republican retreat that ended on Saturday in Baltimore.
Representative Jeff Flake, Republican of Arizona, said there was no retreat from a policy standpoint. ?I think you?ll see a more civil debate than you would have had otherwise,? Mr. Flake said on ?Face the Nation? on CBS. ?I?m not sure the substance of the debate will change that much.?
Of course, any change in the way lawmakers debate issues or interact with one another on the floor could be as short-lived as a 30-second ad in a primary campaign. And Republicans in the 112th Congress, newly in control of the House and a stronger force in the Senate, said they would still fight to undo much of the legislation that emerged from the 111th, in which Democrats held sway in both chambers.
But in interviews and television appearances over the weekend, lawmakers in both parties voiced clear recognition that the Arizona massacre has put them on notice that it is time to dial down the rhetoric with which they publicly express differences ? even as many reiterated a belief that the gunman?s mental illness, not heated political rhetoric, was the core issue in the shooting.
Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, the No. 3 Democrat, and Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma, a leading conservative, said Sunday that they would sit together at the State of the Union speech. The gesture, expected to be replicated by colleagues, stands to alter the seemingly timeless image of lawmakers on one side of the House chamber standing and applauding a president from their own party, while lawmakers on the other side sit stone-faced, their hands in their laps.
The centrist Democratic group Third Way initially proposed bipartisan seating at the president?s annual address on Jan. 25, and Senator Mark Udall, Democrat of Colorado, urged members of Congress to embrace the idea, which Mr. Schumer said prompted him to reach out to Mr. Coburn.
?We hope that many others will follow us,? Mr. Schumer said, appearing with Mr. Coburn on ?Meet the Press? on NBC. ?Now, that?s symbolic, but maybe it just sets a tone and everything gets a little bit more civil.?
Mr. Schumer added: ?We believe in discourse in America. We believe in strenuous discourse. We don?t sweep differences under the rug.
?Tom and I have real differences. But we can do it civilly. I will say, to Tom?s credit, we have disagreed on a whole lot of stuff, but he?s always been civil, he?s always been a gentleman. And that?s an example that people should follow ? politicians and the media.?
Mr. Coburn said that the news media had focused too much on political rancor and that lawmakers on both sides simply needed to settle down to work. ?Some of the problems in our country is we talk past each other, not to each other,? he said. ?And Chuck and I have been able to work on multiple bills because we sit down, one on one, and work things out. And what we need to do is have more of that, not less of it.?
Among the potential issues to be addressed are gaps in laws intended to prevent those who are mentally ill or abuse drugs from buying guns.
Mr. Coburn noted that many questions had been raised about the mental state of Jared L. Loughner, the man accused in the Tucson attack, but that Mr. Loughner had never been brought to the attention of mental health authorities who might have prevented him from buying a weapon.


