But Roberts is based on Congressional rules from the last century. They haven't changed all that much in most respects, but Roberts changed a few things just because, well, they're his rules and he thought what he said worked better.
But it makes sense in principle. If you lose a vote, you have a motive to try to get a revote over and over just to gum things up. Otherwise, non-action is non-action. Something wins 51-49, each of those 49 "losers" could constantly move to reintroduce the measure. Minorities in a committee have rights; majorities also have rights. Roberts tries to balance them and give a workable set of procedures to get the committee to work efficiently with due regard to majority and minority rights.
Regular order in the Senate is there to preserve minority rights. McCain was right in decrying violating this order. However, his was an equal opportunity decrial that landed severe blows on both parties. Trying to point out small differences and make them into huge mountains of principle I think is specious.
There's another provision in Robert's that you can't reintroduce a measure unless it's substantially different from a previous measure. That gives teeth to the "you can only reintroduce a measure that lost if you were on the winning side." If not for this, then the former rule would be meaningless. "Yeah, it's the same as the measure that I voted for but which lost yesterday, but I'm giving it a different name so it's a new measure."
Congress, sadly, plays with this rule quite a bit when it suits the leadership. It's a bipartisan sort of play that has the effect of saying, "Minorities have no rights." It weakens the system greatly, makes it a majoritarian system that each side loves when it gets them things and hates when it gets their forever enemies things. It's comparable to the cracks that form in metal when it's repeatedly bent but hasn't yet broken.
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