Although a divided Congress in an election year may be a model of dysfunction, lawmakers this week are set to demonstrate how easily they can agree when their political interests align.

The House likely will approve a Senate-passed bill to strengthen rules against insider trading by members of Congress and executive-branch officials. On Monday, the Senate is expected to pass a long-term Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization bill that spent years stalled over labor issues.

However, not everything may go as smoothly. House Republican leaders’ efforts to push their massive transportation package face internal opposition as well as skepticism from Democrats and Senate Republicans.

Meanwhile, conferees wrestling with financing the payroll-tax-holiday package speed toward a soft Feb. 17 deadline established to give both chambers time to act before the current package’s Feb. 29 expiration. Anxiety is building that Congress is heading for another eleventh-hour showdown.

But the STOCK Act gets marquee billing this week, even as Capitol Hill insiders privately complain that it addresses a nonexistent problem and merely bolsters standing law.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., who promised to act “with dispatch” on the bill, said on Friday that House Republicans will first “strengthen it.”

The House also takes up a variation of the line-item veto this week. Sought by every president since Richard Nixon, the bill, backed by Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and the panel’s top Democrat, Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., would allow presidents to strike specific provisions of appropriations bills, with congressional approval.

The Senate takes up the conference report on a four-year reauthorization of the FAA, which the House approved on Friday. Labor’s displeasure with changes to unionizing rules aside, passage is expected. Then the Senate will likely move to a surface-transportation reauthorization bill, which Senate leaders think they can pass. However, House Republicans’ efforts to attach provisions regarding energy policy, such as one to allow construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, make it unlikely that a final deal will be reached soon.

Senate Republicans will huddle on Wednesday for an extra day of discussions that they failed to complete during a retreat last month. With their eye on winning Senate control by running against President Obama, they hope to avoid handing him ammunition on the campaign trail. But some rank-and-file members want to draw sharper distinctions with him on issues that leadership believes are political liabilities.