Global Use of The Conscience Vote
Free votes are found in Canadian and some British legislative bodies, conscience votes in Australian and New Zealand legislative bodies.
In the United States, parties exercise comparatively little control over the votes of individual legislators, who are almost always free to vote as they wish. Accordingly, most legislative votes in the United States can be considered free votes, although in rare circumstances a legislator may be disciplined by his or her party for a renegade vote. Such discipline usually occurs only on votes regarding procedural matters on which party unity is expected as a matter of course, rather than substantive matters. For example, Democrat James Traficant was stripped of his seniority and committee assignments in 2001 when he voted for a Republican, Dennis Hastert, to be Speaker of the United States House of Representatives. Because free votes are the norm in the United States, the terms "free vote" and "conscience vote" are generally unused and unknown there.
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Famous quotes containing the words global, conscience and/or vote:
“However global I strove to become in my thinking over the past twenty years, my sons kept me rooted to an utterly pedestrian view, intimately involved with the most inspiring and fractious passages in human development. However unconsciously by now, motherhood informs every thought I have, influencing everything I do. More than any other part of my life, being a mother taught me what it means to be human.”
—Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)
“Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled.”
—Bible: New Testament St. Paul, in Titus, 1:15.
See Lawrence on Puritans.
“But you must know the class of sweet women—who are always so happy to declare “they have all the rights they want”; “they are perfectly willing to let their husbands vote for them”Mare and always have been numerous, though it is an occasion for thankfulness that they are becoming less so.”
—Eliza “Mother” Stewart (1816–1908)