An institution that doesn't fulfill its basic responsibilities (passing a budget) and thus relies on "continuing resolutions" to, um, continue its work, which then are fraught will sorts of brinksmanship... well, this cannot be called a functioning institution, I don't think. I'll have more ruminations on legislative institutions later, but here is one interesting result of prior empirical analysis that I have done: in transition economies, legislative effectiveness (or rather, the building of an effective legislature in a shorter period of time) tended to correlate quite negatively with economic success. I conjecture in my book that this is most likely because legislative organs tend to be more concerned with redistribution, and in an environment where the economic institutions haven't arisen or been put in place (i.e. property rights are still weak), opening up the treasury to a group of money-grubbing politicians might not be the best idea.
Again, when thinking about the quality of an institution, perhaps it is best to remember Groucho's maxim about never belonging to a club that would have him as a member. I think if you can have a legislative body that welcomes Elizabeth Warren, maybe there are some flaws with your institution.