They’re not making politicians like Lowell P. Weicker Jr. anymore, at least not any that can get elected to Congress.

Weicker, who died June 28, served at time of far less rigid political boundaries. It was a time when Congress could still function because not every vote was measured against political purity.

Today, Congress borders on the dysfunctional. The Senate and House of Representatives no longer pass budgets, but instead “continuing resolutions.” The last enactment of a timely federal budget came in 1997. Adjusting the debt ceiling becomes a cause for political showdowns, though both parties share the blame for massive debt accumulation due to both reckless spending and tax cuts. In a divided Congress, as now exists, little legislation of significance gets passed because neither party wants to hand the other a legislative “victory.”

Yet Congress will need, somehow, to function, because also in the recent headlines were a series of rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court. Among them was the decision striking down as unconstitutional President Biden’s move to forgive student debt. The conservative court has consistently pushed back against what it sees as presidents overstepping their executive power. But if presidents can’t act and Congress won’t, what will get done?

Our governance is a mess. What happened?

Consider the arch of Weicker’s career and what it represents.

Before his election as Connecticut governor as a third-party candidate in 1990, and his controversial crusade that led to enactment of the income tax, Weicker had served in Congress. After a single term in the House of Representative’s from the state’s Fourth District, Weicker spent three terms as a senator before Joe Lieberman unseated him in 1988.

Politically speaking, it was a far different time.

There were northeast Republicans, including Weicker, who were progressive on social issues and saw a role for government in making society fairer and more equitable. Yet they were also pro-business and wanted government programs to run efficiently.

There were southern Democrats who were culturally conservative but who supported the pro-labor initiatives and federal government programs that were the legacy of the New Deal. They felt no shame about bringing home the bacon from Washington.

Around such lawmakers compromises could be built and legislation passed. Untroubled by today’s need to maintain ideological purity, they were open to deals.

But as the Republican Party moved right, starting with the election of President Ronald Reagan in 1980 and the rise of the Moral Majority, more voters in the northeast became unwilling to back any Republican for Congress. Donald Trump’s election as president in 2016 further damaged the GOP brand. The last Republican federal lawmaker left standing in New England is Senator Sue Collins of Maine.

Chris Shays was the last Republican congressman from Connecticut. In 2008, Shays lost to Democrat Jim Himes, who continues to hold the seat. Shays, a moderate in the tradition of Weicker, held the same Fourth District seat Weicker once represented.

The Democratic collapse in the Deep South goes back further. The party’s southern power was the product of an unholy compromise. For decades, northern Democrats did not push their southern counterparts on the immorality of segregation. When that changed during the administrations of Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson in the 1960s, and their backing of civil rights legislation, the Democratic grip on the South eroded. Southern Democrats still had some sway during Weicker’s time in the Senate, but the region was rapidly moving into the conservative Republican camp.

Republicans now dominate there, except for the two Democratic senators from Georgia, Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock. They were elected in large measure because Republican primary voters in that state nominated terrible Trumpian candidates to run against them.

The Pew Research Center has well documented the increased political polarization and the demise of politicians, like Weicker, who were willing to buck the party. By analyzing voting records, Pew found that at the time Weicker arrived in Washington, 144 House Republicans were less conservative than the most conservative Democrat, and 52 House Democrats were less liberal than the most liberal Republican.

According to Pew’s analysis, today there is no overlap. Everyone stays in their lanes. There are no Republicans less conservative than the most conservative Democrat and no Democrats less liberal than the most liberal Republican. Democrat Zell Miller of Georgia, who retired from the Senate in 2004, was the last congressman to have an “overlap” voting record.

Weicker championed and was the primary author of the Americans with Disabilities Act. It is unimaginable that a Republican senator would today push a federal program to remedy a lack of accessibility for a minority group. Weicker was also a strong environmental advocate.

He was the first Republican senator to call for President Richard Nixon to resign. As a member of the Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities (Watergate Committee), Weicker helped document Nixon’s unconstitutional and illegal abuses of presidential power. How different from the unwillingness of Republicans to hold Trump accountable when he was impeached, twice.

There is reason to mourn not only the passing of Lowell Weicker, but also the passing of a time when the election of such lawmakers was possible. The existing polarization of our politics, the intolerance to consider alternative views, the inability to challenge party doctrine and survive politically, none of it is healthy for our country.

But it is hard to see what will change things.

Paul Choiniere is the former editorial page editor of The Day, now retired. He can be reached at p.choiniere@yahoo.com.