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Approval of New Members in Order of Business


BryanSullo

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The instances where the chair's use of unanimous consent are proper are always distinguished by the fact that the use does not give the appearance that the chair is acting in a partial or partisan way.

The fact that there was indeed no objection either to taking up the question of admitting new members out of normal order, nor to their admission, is a pretty good indication that no one at the meeting thought Mr. Sullo's asking whether there was unanimous consent for these actions gave "the appearance that the chair is acting in a partial or partisan way."

It's rather odd to be so very concerned that an inquiry by the chair whether there is unanimous consent to do something will violate impartiality when any single member can immediately bring about regular procedure by objecting. "If an objection is made with reasonable promptness, even though the chair may have already announced the result as one of 'no objection,' he must disregard such an announcement and proceed to state the question in the usual manner." RONR (11th ed.), p.54, l. 36 to p. 55, l. 4. The chair is, after all, making an inquiry of the members present, not seeking to impose his or her will upon them. I do not mean to suggest that there are no circumstances in which a chair could employ unanimous consent requests in a manner that displays partiality, but in general it is a very useful tool that presiding officers ought to be encouraged to use, not discouraged from employing.

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The fact that there was indeed no objection either to taking up the question of admitting new members out of normal order, nor to their admission, is a pretty good indication that no one at the meeting thought Mr. Sullo's asking whether there was unanimous consent for these actions gave "the appearance that the chair is acting in a partial or partisan way."

It's rather odd to be so very concerned that an inquiry by the chair whether there is unanimous consent to do something will violate impartiality when any single member can immediately bring about regular procedure by objecting. "If an objection is made with reasonable promptness, even though the chair may have already announced the result as one of 'no objection,' he must disregard such an announcement and proceed to state the question in the usual manner." RONR (11th ed.), p.54, l. 36 to p. 55, l. 4. The chair is, after all, making an inquiry of the members present, not seeking to impose his or her will upon them. I do not mean to suggest that there are no circumstances in which a chair could employ unanimous consent requests in a manner that displays partiality, but in general it is a very useful tool that presiding officers ought to be encouraged to use, not discouraged from employing.

The chair would have no reason to know the will of the assembly before making the request.

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The chair would have no reason to know the will of the assembly before making the request.

I disagree entirely. The chair is likely quite familiar with the general nature of his assembly and likely will have a good feel of what he can and cannot ask for unanimous consent on. In particular, if he's already received requests from multiple members before the meeting to do something, then he can assume that a sufficiently-educated member* would make and have seconded a motion to suspend the rules and do it. In that case, it is entirely reasonable for the chair to save time by, rather than waiting for a motion on what he feels will be an entirely uncontroversial matter, asking unanimous consent for it to be done.

As a stronger example of disagreement to your generalization here, consider any motion that is adopted as a matter of custom in an assembly. A chair should have no trouble assuming that, if some routine motion were adopted at the previous meeting, there will be no objection to doing so again. He should, of course, never go so far as to assume the adoption of the decision of unanimous consent.

*And if the member is not sufficiently educated, then a good chair would so educate the member upon hearing the request.

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