I think probably THE most important, or symbolic, thing Caesar ever did was in the very beginning of his Consulship, when the Senate refused to consider his land bill, and he simply took it straight to the Assembly. That was the first of the "illegal acts" that his enemies would hold over his head the next 10 years, and it also shows a shocking disregard for the position of the Senate . . . although several leaders had done this beforehand, Caesar was so matter-of-fact about it, as if the protests of Bibulus and Cato mattered nothing at all to him.

Of course, that bill HAD to get passed, it was part of his deal with Pompey, but - am I right? - for just about the rest of his consulship, when he couldn't convince and/or intimidate the Senate, he just took his tribunes and got the Assembly to vote his programs?

In talking about how the Romans voted, I don't think there's much doubt that, in the last decades of the Republic, the Optimates were very anxious to make sure that they used the system to keep their own primacy and to support their own self-interested programs - hence the upset whenever anyone talked about dispersing newly enfranchized provincial voters throughout the tribes, as opposed to sticking 'em in a tribe that voted towards the end, or creating a new tribe which would (because Cisalpine Gaul was so far away) be almost sure to show negligible results in any election.

One wonders if Caesar was simply using the system for other aims than the other Optimates?