A week of nostalgic farewell for Gerald Ford gave way to the start of a new and different political era Thursday in Washington.

In both the House and Senate, aggressive new Democratic majorities have taken office with an agenda and tone that will quickly show President Bush and his Republican allies that their years of unfettered power have ended.

Symbolizing the change is the fact that, even before Bush set a date for his speech on Iraq, the incoming Democratic chairmen of the Senate Foreign Relations and Armed Services committees announced hearings next week on his policies.

In the House, the new speaker, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, plans to start promptly on a list of measures the Democrats hope to pass even before Bush unveils his agenda in his State of the Union speech.

Both moves promise to demonstrate considerable differences with the Bush agenda. Progress will require finding common ground between rival camps, particularly in regard to Iraq.

The hearings planned by incoming Foreign Relations chairman Joseph Biden of Delaware and Armed Services chairman Carl Levin of Michigan promise to subject top administration officials to the kind of tough questions they avoided under acquiescent GOP chairmen of recent years.

Democratic leaders also plan to end the practice under which the Republicans allowed the administration to withhold spending projections for Iraq and Afghanistan from its regular budget, deferring funding for the war to the later supplemental spending bills.

That means budget and appropriations committees will require more specific estimates of war costs and exercise tighter control of how the money is spent. It could even lead to efforts to restrict war funds if the White House persists in policies that enough lawmakers oppose.

In the House, meanwhile, the Democrats plan to redeem their campaign pledge to enact an array of measures in the first 100 hours of legislative sessions.

They include proposals to revamp policies on Medicare prescription drug prices, lower interest rates on student loans, spur stem cell research and raise energy industry taxes. Others would increase the minimum wage, curb congressional lobbying and implement the 9/11 commission's recommendations for stricter homeland security and more effective oversight of intelligence.

Democratic leaders also plan to extend the House working schedule to five days, rather than the shorter work week the Republicans designed to encourage members to spend more time at home with their constituents. Even with that schedule, it may take the better part of three weeks to work through the agenda.

It remains unclear to what degree Pelosi and Majority Leader-designate Steny Hoyer will follow through on pre-election promises to let the Republicans participate in the legislative process to a greater degree than GOP leaders let them do.

The Democrats have already stirred some Republican resentment by deciding to short-circuit some regular procedures in the interest of passing the measures promptly.

Depending on its ability to offer amendments, the GOP may try to add its own pet proposals to the Democratic legislation. Last year, for example, Republicans sought unsuccessfully to add the elimination of estate taxes to a minimum wage hike.

But just as President Richard Nixon and top Democratic leaders had to agree more than three decades ago on the choice of Ford to succeed resigned Vice President Spiro Agnew, so too will Pelosi and the new Senate majority leader, Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, have to reach some common ground with Bush to enact their legislative initiatives.

So too will Bush have to satisfy the increasing congressional pressure for a path out of Iraq.

Washington didn't see this kind of political interplay in the four previous years, when Republicans controlled the White House and both houses of Congress. We can only hope that divided control proves more successful in meeting national challenges than the one-party government of recent years.