In the excellent blog "Congress Matters" (which I read as part of my daily reading for current legislative matters), David Waldman explains the different practices for "rebelling" in the two Houses within Congress.He wrote in the blog -
In the House, when the [Democratic] leadership needs to move legislation that might be a tough vote for members from conservative-leaning districts, they let it be known that certain of their number will be free to "vote their districts." But it's a very rare event that legislation is simply pulled at their behest.
Now, most of that is due to the nature of the way the House functions versus the Senate, of course. But it's important to point out: House members are considered to be doing the "safe" thing in voting against important legislation if the think their districts "demand" it. And sometimes, if the whip count is solid, they get a pass on the rule, too. But voting against the rule is looked on with considerably less favor. (Or at least, it used to be. These days voting against the rule for no particular reason other than to lower the percentage of votes one casts in support of the leadership has come into limited acceptance.)
The point, though, is that House members are considered to have adequately protected themselves if they vote against legislation that ultimately passes despite their vote. But move to the Senate, and suddenly that's not enough.
Maybe that's because so many people know enough about filibusters and cloture voting to know that there's at least the option available to Senators to stop legislation they oppose this way. But filibusters have become far too common of late, in part because of changes to the way they're conducted. "Painless filibusters" have long since replaced the real thing, and unanimous consent agreements requiring 60-vote thresholds have made things even easier.
The failure to distinguish between procedural and substantive voting in the Senate is akin to the failure in the House to make the same distinction with regard to motions to recommit. And though much of the difficulty with those motions was removed by the rules change earlier this year that eliminated the "promptly" instruction, it remains a weapon potent enough that it continues to hold DC voting rights hostage.
The distinction between voting againgst the party on a procedural motion and voting against the party on the substantive issue is important when considering members' behaviour in Congress.
