Will procedural votes cost 2 House Democrats their committee assignments?

On Sept. 1, two Democrats, Reps. Jared Golden (Maine) and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (Wash.) had the audacity to vote in favor of a special rule without first informing their leaders of their intentions.

The top three House Democratic leaders — Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.), Whip Katherine Clark (Mass.), and Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar (Calif.), were enraged and issued a terse joint statement: “The decision by two of our colleagues to blindside the entire House Democratic Caucus and join with the Republican majority to pass a procedural rule on the brink of failing represents a significant breach of trust.” The statement concluded that the action “necessitates a serious response,” and called on the caucus’s Committee on Caucus Rules “to take this up in short order.”

What caused such a brouhaha over a vote on a simple procedural resolution?  Ordinarily, such rules providing for the consideration of legislation are adopted along strict party-line votes, the exceptions more recently being a handful of Republicans who stray from the pack on rule votes. In this instance, however, the rule was narrowly adopted, 210-208, with the votes of the two Democrats providing the winning margin for Republicans.

Moreover, one of the measures the special rule made in order was a simple House resolution clearly designed to put House Democrats in an embarrassing box. It read, “Resolved, that the House of Representatives condemns and denounces socialism in all its forms, including the Democratic Socialists of America, and opposes the........

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