Democrats rolled into DC this January with the fervor of any party that's been waiting to get back in power for a decade.

But their hopes to kick some legislative butt got bogged down by Ground Hog Day head-butting over Iraq and a weak majority in the Senate (where a record 62 bills were filibusterd). Any chance of passing bipartisan legislation on immigration reform was handicapped by the president's increasingly feeble political capital.

Even so, not nothing got done. Here cJ recaps the moderate amount of work Congress got done in '07.

Education. As part of its kick-off campaign, Dems kept true to their promise to throw more support to college tuition. With less fanfare, Congress also renewed the Head Start bill, which pays for pre-school programs for low income kids, and which has been held up for renewal for a couple of years.

Health. An attempt to widen coverage of health care for low income kids, the SCHIP program, got tripped up. 

Housing. With the mortgage market on shaky ground, Congress started looking at ways to help out families defaulting on their sub-prime loans and also to shore up the credit market. The only bill that got signed into law, HR 3648, would keep families from being taxed on any mortgage debt they were forgiven (which is normally taxed).

Trade. Dems brought a bunch of free trade deals back to the drawing board - to make them more labor and enviro friendly - but only passed one, with Peru, in the end. One of the biggest things to happen in trade is what didn't happen, that is the president's "fast track" trade authority ran out this year without congressional renewal.