Ask Democrats in Congress whether 2013 was a lost year for them, and most answer the way the president does: The party controls the Senate, but has an unwilling partner in a House GOP often overcome by its pesky right flank. Failed negotiations between the president and House Speaker John Boehner have created some ill will between the two parties, and Democrats know anything with the president’s fingerprints is destined to fail in the lower chamber.

“I think we’ve had major accomplishments on things we can do here,” Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, who won re-election in 2012 in a swing state, told RCP. Brown hopes items left on the table, such as extending long-term unemployment benefits and raising the minimum wage, will get done next year, and he also hopes the president will use his bully pulpit to help. “It’s discouraging we haven’t done those yet, but we’ve got no cooperation from the other side to do it,” he said.

A comprehensive immigration reform bill that included a pathway to citizenship for millions living here illegally passed the Senate with bipartisan support — and brought together members of the business community, evangelicals, and big labor. The Senate also passed the Employee Non-Discrimination Act with the help of some Republicans who had voted against the gay rights bill in the past. And Democrats also saw strides made on gun control, with some bipartisan support for an expanded background check measure, even if the bill didn’t pass the Senate and had no chance in the House. (It did, however, earn a key endorsement from West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, who three years earlier literally turned his shotgun on the cap-and-trade energy bill.) But the House didn’t take up any of these.