BALTIMORE — There is something liberating about not being in charge.

House Democrats seemed jovial, occasionally even buoyant, last week as more than 140 members of their caucus gathered for a retreat in a hotel overlooking Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, unencumbered by the raucous protests and heavy expectations that followed Republicans to their own retreat in Philadelphia two weeks ago.

As some of their conservative colleagues received a battering at town hall meetings back home over issues like their plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act, Democrats tried not to look too pleased with the consolation prize from a bruising election: It is not their problem anymore.

“What they’re realizing is that disaster, that marketplace chaos which would result from repealing and replacement, is going to be blamed on them,” Representative Frank Pallone Jr. of New Jersey, the top Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said of Republicans and their proposals for the health law. “And they can’t blame us for it anymore.”

Eight years ago, it was Democrats who settled into a defensive crouch as they weathered their own town hall gatherings, fending off criticism from Republicans and the nascent Tea Party movement.