Presiding Officer of Meeting Serving on Nominating Committee

[Guest Kim Cameron]

Our Association holds an annual business meeting whereby the Council Director is the presiding officer.  The presiding officer wants to serve as the chairman of the nominating committee.  Is this an acceptable practice according to RONR?  Below is a description from the Council ByLaws.

Council Nominating Committee

The Council Nominating Committee and chairman appointed by the Council Director. The members are:

• A chairman without vote who has previously served on a nominating Committee and three (3) members.
• The Committee shall consist of members from different local associations or members-at-large within the Council. (see Article IV. Section 3.D. of the IAIP bylaws)

All committee members must attend the annual council meeting. The members of this committee should have previously:

• attended three of the last five council meetings;
• attended regional conferences and international conventions;
• held positions at the council and/or regional levels; and
• demonstrated knowledge of council, regional, and international issues.

The committee receives recommendations and qualifications of candidates from local associations and active members. In addition, the committee can submit its own nominations. The committee shall submit at least one name for each position to be filled. Following the report of the committee, additional nominations may be made from the floor. The nominations are for the following positions:

• Council Director-Elect;
• Chairman of the Public Relations/Programs Committee and the Membership Development Committee, depending on the council bylaws.

[Hieu H. Huynh]

RONR recommends that the president is not a member of the nominating committee.

[Josh Martin]

31 minutes ago, Guest Kim Cameron said:

Our Association holds an annual business meeting whereby the Council Director is the presiding officer.  The presiding officer wants to serve as the chairman of the nominating committee.  Is this an acceptable practice according to RONR?

It is not recommended for the President (and it seems your Council Director serves a similar role) to serve on the nominating committee, but it is not prohibited. It is also not recommended for the President to appoint the nominating committee, but it seems your organization has not followed that recommendation.

[Guest RJJ]

Can you point me where in RONR it states that the president is not recommended to chair the nom com?  Also does it state who and who cannot be elected to nom com?  We have an organization where the the entire executive council is the nom committee creating a slate of future executive council officers.  It seems this would tend to produce a pattern of people/personalities/thinking that could not otherwise be broken without always voting dow the slate.

 

[Richard Brown]

This is what RONR says about the inadvisability of the president and the nominating committee on page 433 of the 11th edition:

"Designation of the Nominating Committee. The nominating committee should be elected by the organization wherever possible, or else by its executive board. Although in organizing a new society it may be feasible for the chair to appoint the nominating committee, in an organized society the president should not appoint this committee or be a member of it—ex officio or otherwise. The bylaws may provide that "the President shall appoint all committees except the Nominating Committee . . ." and that "the President shall be ex officio a member of all committees except the Nominating Committee . . ."; the exception should not be omitted in either case. "

RONR does not contain any restrictions on who can serve on the nominating committee other than the president.

Edited to add:  RONR makes additional statements regarding the president not appointing or serving on the nominating committee on pages 466, 495, 579 and 587.  Some of those are suggested bylaws language.

Edited September 29, 2017 at 06:35 PM by Richard Brown
Added last paragraph

[Gary Novosielski]

The recommendations in RONR, accurately cited by Mr. Brown, are just that--recommendations for what your bylaws should say.  But unless someone took the advice and include those provisions in the bylaws, they're just the answer to a trivia question.  You need to read the bylaws, and the first thing to look for is by whom the nominating committee gets appointed.  If it was really by the general membership, how did the whole executive council end up on the committee?