DENNIS MYERS Against the Grain Advertisement

The Hill is a newspaper covering congressional affairs. With reported Republican obstruction in a supposed era of bipartisan cooperation becoming an issue, the Hill last week reported on a survey it did of Democratic senators. The newspaper's Taylor Rushing asked the Democrats to name the most bipartisan Republicans. And one of the names mentioned several times was, of all people, Nevada's John Ensign.

Listen to these three Democratic senators:

Barbara Boxer of California: "Olympia Snowe. I work beautifully with her. I work well with Ensign when we agree. We don't usually, but in lots of cases we have. We've done after-school legislation together; we've done tax law together. And Olympia I work well with on the environment, on consumers. I'd say if I have to pick two, those are mine. We get along, we like each other, and there's a mutual respect there."

Maria Cantwell of Washington: "Sen. Ensign and I worked together on energy tax credits and were successful in getting that implemented. That's a recent example. He's got good staff. Also Sen. Hatch."

Dianne Feinstein of California: "I've worked with Snowe. I worked for a long time with Sen. Kyle on the Terrorism and Technology Subcommittee. I've now got a bill with Ensign and Cornyn. I've done some things with Sessions. I think it's about areas of interest and where they coincide. It's very important. We are much more partisan here than the American people in the way they look at life and solutions to problems."

This goes so sharply against Ensign's public profile it is a revelation. Even Nevada's senior senator, Harry Reid -- who has a nonaggression pact with Ensign -- didn't mention Ensign ("McConnell, because I have to. He has experience, and he understands the procedures around here. Bill Frist, I got along really well with him. Trent Lott was great.").

Forgive me for looking below the surface of this assessment of Ensign as bipartisan, but I suspect there is less here than meets the eye. Specifically, I think the appraisal of the three senators says more about them than about Ensign.

He never shows much bipartisanship when he's NOT working with Cantwell, Boxer and Feinstein. Ensign is the senator who, after Republican Arlen Specter switched parties, did not question the GOP's strategies or tactics but instead produced some harsh partisan rhetoric -- "It is imperative that we have checks and balances to ensure that Democrats don't take our country radically left."

I don't think it's a coincidence the three senators who work well with Ensign are all women. Women legislators are a lot better at ignoring partisan lines.

About 15 years ago, I wrote a column on the Nevada Legislature describing a wave of powerful women lobbyists coming on the scene. Their success, I wrote, had to do with the fact they WERE women. Instead of the hard-ball approach so often wielded by male lobbyists, they used a softer sell. Because of their life experiences, they knew how to coax and nurture relationships with legislators while many male lobbyists needed to depend on campaign contributions and pressure tactics.

At the time, I didn't extend that notion to women legislators because there weren't enough of them to make a judgment that the same kind of thing applied. But as time has passed, there has been an accumulation of evidence the same thing DOES apply. The late Jan Evans, a Washoe County Democratic legislator who went from being a lobbyist to being speaker pro tem of the Nevada Assembly, was noted for her ability to work with Republicans.

Republican Ann O'Connell, known as a fringe political activist before (and after) her Nevada Senate service, won praise for treating all who appeared before her committee fairly and for straight dealing with her fellow senators. It often won her support on issues.

It's good to know senators Cantwell, Boxer and Feinstein are able to bring bipartisanship out in Ensign. Maybe they can make it a habit in him and others.