Nathan Zook

Bylaws provisions: The Executive Board shall: A. Manage the affairs of the Central Committee; B. Exercise the powers and perform the duties of the Central Committee between meetings of the Central Committee, except as expressly exempted by these Bylaws; ... The Central Committee Chairman shall: A. Be the Chief Executive Officer of the Central Committee and shall preside at all meetings of the Executive Board and Central Committee; ... A dispute arose between the bulk of the executive board and the chairman. There was then a motion to suspend the rules and declare the chair vacant. Is such a motion in order? Certainly, it would be in order for the assembly to do so, but can a committee (in general)? If a committee generally cannot, do the empowering provisions above suffice to allow the executive board to do so?

Welp, that's what I was asking. Uggh. Thanks again.

Our bylaws state that the chairman shall appoint the secretary & treasurer. Do such appointments require notification of the body? My instinct was yes, but the closest reference I can find is RONR 13:15, which states that committee appointments by the chair must be announced. Ugly details: Chair informed the secretary that they were being replaced immediately before a meeting, but no mention of this change was made to the body. We now have two sets of minutes, with a substantial difference, and a committee has been appointed to recommend what to do... (Yea me!) Mechanically, the committee can recommend a substitute, but politically, I want to be able to blame you all for the starting point...

What about 10:8, item 7b? A motion to prevent the introduction of motions sounds to me like it "would have the effect of suspending ... a parliamentary right of members".

And what majority would be required to adopt such a motion?

RCW 29A.80.020 references the state central committee. This is a meeting of a county central committee.

There are no notice requirements of any kind in the relevant statutes. (This is the central committee of a political party. Let's not get into the constitutional implications. :D)

The term "organizational meeting" comes from the statute creating the committee, and requires the election of a chairman, vice chairman, state committeeman and state committeewoman. (https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=29A.80) It is also at this meeting that the committee members themselves take office. If this is a special meeting, then on what authority do the officers of the retiring committee have the right to limit the actions of the new committee? If one supposes that the statute sets the permitted acts of the body, then there is a huge problem because neither the offices of secretary nor treasurer are mentioned in the statutes regarding the organizational meeting.

The organizational meeting of our central committee is coming up. As is the custom, the notice includes an agenda, and at the bottom, in bold, is the phrase, "No other items shall be in order." Let's just say that I am not a fan of this custom. Of course, RONR specifies that the agenda has to be adopted by the body in order to become effective. My question involves the vote required to adopt such an agenda. What is the vote required to adopt an agenda which prevents the introduction of motions not on the agenda? In the gray pages, I see Adopt an agenda or program as generally requiring a majority vote. However, there is a reference to section 10, Main Motion. Under the SDC (10:8), item 7b "when the adoption of the motion would have the effect of suspending ... a parliamentary right of members, in which case it requires a two-thirds vote ..." Since such an agenda would suspend the right of members to make motions, I believe that a two-thirds vote is required. I expect to be opposed in this at the meeting. I would appreciate your views.

"Nor do I find in the grey section a motion specific to compelling an officer to respond to a question." I don't find a motion specific to painting the clubhouse blue, either. That does not mean that such a motion does not exist, or that it is out of order. Nor do I need a rule of compelling for a motion to compel to be in order. I fully agree that no member may compel another. But the body most certainly can compel members on pain of whatever penalty the body might decide as described by their bylaws and RONR. So if a member requests (through the chair) some information, and the chair permits it, if the officer refuses, that the requesting member might immediately respond with a motion to compel an answer. If the motion passes, and the officer still refuses, then this becomes an offense committed at a meeting, and the standard disciplinary process can be followed. If the chair does not permit the question, the requesting member can Appeal. I fully agree that the chair needs to maintain proper order, and keeping questions from devolving into debate is certainly a common part of this duty. But I believe that you are question-begging. Under RONR, limiting discussion to put motions is a primary tool in this regard, but the report of officers is a period during which there is no motion, but discussion (in the form of questions of the officer about the report) is desirable. The point of our discussion is to suss out the lines of managing this discussion-sans-motion situation. As another has mentioned, there could be ten different people lined up to ask ten different questions of the reporting officer. Surely the chair lacks the authority to deny any of these members the right to even attempt to ask a question. But surely also, the body cannot be compelled to suspend all other business until these members are all satisfied. So what is to be done? My view is that we may best proceed as if an implicit motion to be satisfied with the report of the officer were before the body. Similar to accepting of the minutes, this implicit motion "passes" when discussion stops. Similar to a main motion, the question may be called to stop the discussion. Uniquely, the motion auto-tables when some motion relating to the report is made, and is automatically taken from the table when such a motion is finally disposed of.

Then one either responds "I do not know", or "I am not permitted to say." How the assembly responds to such an answer is the business of the assembly.

I have read the sections referenced in the index under Officers, Reports. No where do I find that the Treasurer has the right to refuse an order by the assembly to answer a question non-evasively. Nor do I find in the grey section a motion specific to compelling an officer to respond to a question. I therefore am of the view that the officers are subordinate to the assembly, and that if they refuse a order by the assembly, such as to answer a question completely, truthfully, and non-evasively, that they would be subject to discipline by the body. Based on this view, I reasoned further that a motion to compel an answer to a question would pass by majority vote. Furthermore, as we well know that questions and answers are often debate by another name, it seems reasonable to treat a protracted series of questions as if it were debate. As mentioned by others, if we do, we are in a situation of debate without a pending motion, or without an explicit motion. In this case, it appears to me that the assembly is more-or-less debating an implicit motion to be satisfied with the report of the Treasurer. Given that main motions arising out the report of an officer are in order at the time of the officer's report, I don't really understand your position. Yes, a Request for Information is the proper form to initiate a question or series of questions on the report. However, you seem to be suggesting that a motion to compel a complete, truthful, and non-evasive answer to a question would not be in order. Am I correct? If so, on what basis? Certainly, if the bylaws specific that a certain amount of time is set aside for the report of the Treasurer, or that some late order of business occur at a set time, I would agree. But I do not see this as part of the matter we have discussed up until now.

If I may be so bold, the problem is that there are meetings being scheduled which deliberately conflict with the jobs of the members. This violates the fundamental rights of those members to attend the meetings, which is what set off my alarm bells. My suggestion would be to have the members of the Senate elected and take office in such a fashion that they are able to communicate their inability to teach classes which conflict with the time of the meetings to their departments. I would reserve a meeting time in the morning MWF, so that if a special meeting were needed, an available slot would appear either on the fourth academic day after the call of the special meeting or on the next day. In other words, if professors need to communicate their availability to teach spring semester by November first, have elections in October, effective at the start of the spring semester.

There appears to be some confusion on the part of OP regarding what exactly is/can be/should be Ratified. As stated, an improperly called meeting is no meeting at all, and nothing done by the people in such a setting has any relationship to the society. However, there may have been actions taken by officers or other members of the society inspired by what occurred, and it is these actions which require ratification because no member has a right to act due to what occurred at the gathering. It is for this reason that Ratification is required. If something like a motion had been adopted by the gathering, that thing has no relationship to the society. Formally, it simply did not occur. Members wishing to bind the society according to such a thing would need to bring a motion under New Business at some properly called meeting to do so. If there are notice requirements for such a motion, such notice must go through the channels specified in the bylaws. Such a motion must be whole self contained. If it included language such as "according to the motion adopted", it becomes nonsensical, as there was no meeting and therefore no adoption of anything. Even if every member of a society were present at an improperly called meeting, it is still not a properly called meeting. I believe however, that, unless the bylaws prevent, verbal notice could be given at the gathering for some motion to be brought at a regular meeting.