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The House will try to return to some sense of normalcy Tuesday when lawmakers begin debate over the Republican plan to repeal the new health care law.

Ten days after the shooting of Representative Gabrielle Giffords, the Republican-led House will reconvene in what both sides acknowledge is a changed political atmosphere.

But Republicans have no intention of dropping their push to roll back the health care legislation, though the vote set for Wednesday is unlikely to be repeated anytime soon in the Senate. Following the repeal, the House is set to vote on a measure directing the relevant committees to come up with legislation to replace the health law.

While House Democrats know they can’t stop the Republicans from assembling the votes for repeal, they intend to make their case on and off the floor. The Democratic leader, Nancy Pelosi, plans an event on Tuesday to try to showcase new health care coverage that Americans would lose if the law was overturned.

“Americans want Congress to focus on creating jobs, strengthening the middle class and reducing the deficit, not the Republican plan to repeal patients’ rights and hand power over our health decisions back to insurance companies,” Ms Pelosi said.

Both parties have indicated they will try to tone down the discourse in what no doubt would have been a charged debate before the shooting rampage. The House is only in session a few days this week, allowing Democrats to travel to Maryland’s Eastern Shore for their policy retreat after Republicans held their own meeting last week in Baltimore.

The Senate remains in recess until next week. Technically, it is still Jan. 5 in the chamber, since senators recessed instead of adjourning to keep the Senate in its first legislative day to allow Democrats to press their efforts to change Senate rules. That clash will resume next week unless Senate leaders can strike some agreement on changes to satisfy Democrats, who contend Republicans abused the rules to delay legislation and nominations over the past two years.

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It might seem like members of the 111th Congress just left, but the 112th Congress arrives Wednesday, bringing with it an extensive new cast of lawmakers and Republican control of the House.

More than 90 new House members and a dozen new senators will take the oath of office when the House and Senate convene at noon on Wednesday. Shortly thereafter, Nancy Pelosi will turn over the speaker’s gavel and the management of the House to John A. Boehner of Ohio, a 20-year Congressional veteran who will complete an extraordinary return from exile after he lost a leadership position in 1998.

House Republicans will no doubt want to quickly put their stamp on the House and will start with a public reading of the Constitution, in recognition of the Constitution-embracing Tea Party movement that helped propel Republicans to a 63 seat-gain in the House in the November elections.

Republicans will then turn their sights on repeal of the health care law, as well as trying to follow through with their campaign pledges to cut spending and make House operations more transparent.

“We are going to be cutting the size of government, we are going to be cutting the deficit and we’re going to do it on the spending side, not by raising taxes,” Representative Fred Upton, the Michigan Republican in line to chair the Energy and Commerce Committee, said on “Fox News Sunday.” “And a year from now I think you’ll see the evidence of what we do in the House, for sure.”

Not all of the new members are new to Congress. The House has a handful of Republicans who took back the House seats they lost in 2008, and the Republicans arriving in the Senate include a former Republican senator, three just-departed members of the House and two former Republican House members.

Both parties are still trying to figure out how the new division on Capitol Hill will work in a practical sense, given control of the House by conservative Republicans matched up with a Senate that will still be managed by Senator Harry Reid, the Nevada Democrat and majority leader. It is certain to be contentious and expectations for much consensus are low at the moment.

And Democrats say that Republicans, after two years in the minority under full Democratic control, are likely to find things a bit different now that they share some responsibility for governing.

“You’ve got to remember,” Representative Elijah Cummings, Democrat of Maryland, said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union,” “they’ve been on the sidelines throwing spit balls saying no, no, no, no, no, no, no.”

“Now they’ve got to do something,” Mr. Cummings said.

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Congress continues its lame-duck march toward Christmas this week with just a handful of critical issues still undecided after the Senate’s weekend repeal of the ban on gay men and lesbians serving openly in the military and the defeat of an immigration measure.

“We have very few things left to do,” Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, told his weary colleagues as they met for Sunday afternoon votes on a nuclear arms control treaty with Russia.

But the things they have left could take some time.

Mr. Reid sought to clarify the calendar on Sunday by taking steps to force votes on a stop-gap spending measure to keep the government operating through March 4. He also moved to limit debate on the New Start nuclear arms treaty with Russia as early as Tuesday.

In the meantime, the Senate is scheduled to continue the debate on New Start on Monday, with lawmakers spending most of the day discussing the treaty and meeting in a closed session in the old Senate chamber to consider classified aspects of the pact.

The spending measure is critical since the current short-term law expires Tuesday, and Congress cannot adjourn without making some provision for keeping the federal government running for the next few months. Senate leaders had been in talks over the bill since a huge spending package collapsed last week, but they were unable to come to an agreement that could move through the Congress without opposition.

The measure the Senate will vote on this Tuesday continues spending at current levels into March but makes special provisions for “certain programs that would otherwise expire or be severely disrupted.” Among those provisions was one to keep the college-aid Pell Grants at current levels to prevent a drop in the maximum award.

The House is set to return on Tuesday to give its approval to the funding measure and doesn’t have much else to do to complete the year since the arms control treaty is strictly a Senate affair.

However, New York’s two Democratic senators, Charles E. Schumer and Kirstin Gillibrand, said Sunday they still had hopes of winning approval this week of a health program for those made ill by toxic substances at ground zero.

They said that Mr. Reid has promised to bring the measure to the Senate floor as soon as the Start treaty is wrapped up. But because of changes in the proposal, it would require House approval, as well. The senators said they hoped to persuade the House leadership to stay in session or even return for another vote if they can get the measure through the Senate.

At the moment, it appears that Start cannot be resolved before Wednesday, creating a real time crunch for the 9/11 measure.

The Senate could also still approve a major Pentagon policy bill that has passed the House. Mr. Reid and Mr. McConnell are also working on a package of executive branch and judicial nominations that could move through the Senate before the 111th Congress is history.

And a food safety bill passed again by the Senate Sunday night after a territorial dispute between the Senate and House could also be sent to the president if the House approves it this week.

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The big question facing Congress this week is whether there will be another week of Congress after this one.

The stop-gap spending measure keeping the government running expires Saturday and many lawmakers — particularly Republicans — would like to finish off the tax measure, pass a long-term spending bill and head for the exits.

But the tax cut compromise probably cannot make it through the Senate until Tuesday at the earliest and the House is likely to bicker about it for a day or two and might even send a changed version back to the Senate, consuming much of the week.

But Democrats are now expressing more confidence — and to some, disappointment — that the compromise tax plan will be enacted.

“Most of us believe, as painful as some of the provisions are, this is absolutely essential so that our economy doesn’t slump and we provide the kind of benefits that unemployed people and the middle class income folks need across America,” Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

At the same time, the Senate has yet to take up its plan to fund the government through Sept. 30, and the House has taken a different approach so that divide has to be worked out as well.

One top Republican aide last week predicted that Congress could actually wrap up as early as Thursday night or Friday if lawmakers can finish off the tax deal and pass a spending measure.

But such an ending would mean that the Senate would not consider the START nuclear arms control treaty with Russia, a top priority of the president and a proposal the White House has been encouraging the Senate to debate. It would probably also mean that Democrats would abandon their efforts to pass a separate measure repealing the Pentagon ban on gays serving in the military, as well as a major immigration law.

If they give up on those initiatives with time still remaining on the Congressional calendar — even though Christmas is rapidly approaching — Democrats are likely to hear from important constituencies that they did not make full use of their last days of holding full control of the Congress. Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader, have some tough scheduling decisions ahead.

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WASHINGTON – Congress returns to begin its lame-duck session on Monday and, despite all the election hoopla, Democrats are still in charge — for now.

But much of the attention at least initially will still be on the incoming Congress as lawmakers old and new of both parties gather for the first time since the Nov. 2 elections to elect their leaders, commiserate with dozens of defeated colleagues and show the ropes to some of the people arriving to replace them.

Though there is a serious legislative backlog facing them, House and Senate Democrats have put off the heavy lifting on taxes and spending for this week. Instead they will try to regroup and figure out what to do about expiring Bush tax cuts, how to mop up leftover spending issues and whether to approve extended unemployment compensation among other issues. And they will be doing it while newly empowered Republicans circle around them.

The House has scheduled a series of votes on the sort of non-controversial bills that are often used to fill time along with consideration of a measure to encourage telecommuting by federal workers. The Senate faces possible votes on a food safety measure. Two new members of the Senate — Democrats Chris Coons of Delaware and Joe Manchin III of West Virginia — are set to be sworn in Monday but their presence will not change the partisan makeup of the Senate for the moment.

Much of the action will be off the floor as the parties gather to elect leaders. Speaker Nancy Pelosi hopes to be re-elected Democratic leader on Wednesday despite the loss of 60 seats under her command. Representative Heath Shuler of North Carolina plans to oppose her in what could amount to a way for Democrats to register a protest vote.

Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio is set to become the Republican candidate for House speaker while Representative Kevin McCarthy is expected to officially join the leadership ranks as the new majority whip. The Senate leadership lineup in both parties is expected to remain the same.

On Monday, the ethics trial of Representative Charles Rangel, the 80-year-old Democrat and former Ways & Means Committee chairman, is to begin on charges of failing to properly report assets and other violations.

Congressional leaders are to meet Thursday with President Obama. House and Senate Republicans plan internal votes to ban spending on pet projects known as earmarks though the appetite in the Senate for the prohibition is smaller than the House, where the new majority is eager to make a statement about its willingness to cut spending.

Lawmakers are set to remain in session this week, break for Thanksgiving next week, and then return the week of Nov. 29 for an undetermined amount of time to complete their work.

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Daniel Rosenbaum for The New York Times Philip A. Falcone of Harbinger Capitol Partners. Both the civil and the criminal investigations of the hedge fund Harbinger Capital Partners face significant hurdles. The United States attorney’s office in Manhattan and the Securities and Exchange Commission are examining, according to news reports, whether a $113 million loan [...]