When voters pulled the lever for Republicans in 2014, they probably didn’t have high expectations for the Congress they were creating. With two years left in President Obama’s term, divided government and further gridlock seemed the best possible outcome.

Yet the 114th Congress has been surprisingly productive — and more importantly, it holds forth great promise on such major issues as free trade, criminal justice reform and tax reform. And although not all of the developments are or will be positive, none of the problems stem from the kind of institutional dysfunction that plagued the previous Senate, especially.