A responsibility for civility: the lack of trust and respect in Congress makes it mighty hard to be effective.

• Author: Hamilton, Lee

When he was just a 16-year-old schoolboy, George Washington sat down and copied out 110 "Rules of Civility & Decent Behavior," based on a 16th century set of French maxims. Many of these had to do with simple manners--"Cleanse not your teeth with the tablecloth, napkin, fork or knife," reads Rule 100--but others formed a guide to modest and appropriate behavior in public that our first president followed the rest of his life.

There are times when I find myself wishing that members of Congress today adopted the approach of that particular 16-year-old. Civil behavior hasn't disappeared from Capitol Hill, but it is far less in evidence than it once was. We are all the poorer as a result.

Why should the behavior of a relative handful of people affect the rest of us so thoroughly? To understand this, let's start with what I mean by "civility." Simply put, it means that legislators respect the rights and dignity of others. It does not mean that they need to agree with one another--far from it. Rather, treating one another civilly is how people who don't agree still manage to weigh issues carefully and find common ground. This is an enormously diverse country, with many different interests at the table in any given argument, and we are well served by the vigorous debate that results. But even if our political leaders are not all going to become friends, we can certainly expect them to listen to one another, respect each other, and acknowledge that in a nation as divided as we are politically, good governance entails finding solutions that all can live with.

WHY IS IT SO BAD?

All of this is hard to do these days. For one thing, members of Congress don't know one another as well as they once did--their schedules are so crowded that often they meet only in committee or on the floor in debate, situations that by their nature tend to be confrontational. Modern electioneering being what it is, members also spend much of their non-legislative time either raising money or back in their districts; either way, they are not getting to know one another as individuals.

Since both houses of Congress are so closely divided, this makes it easier for everything to be seen through a partisan lens, shadowed by the looming presence of the next election. Ironically, the fact that redistricting and the advantages of incumbency have made so many elections non-competitive is also a factor, since it brings to Washington politicians who appeal to a partisan base, rather...