Dan Honemann

Well, I suppose it most closely resembles a motion to Reconsider and Enter on the Minutes, but that's a bit of a stretch.

Such a motion is clearly not in order.

Paragraph 1:4 of the current (12th) edition of Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised reads as follows (pay particular attention to the sentence which I have bolded): "A member of an assembly, in the parliamentary sense, as mentioned above, is a person entitled to full participation in its proceedings, that is, as explained in 3 and 4, the right to attend meetings, to make motions, to speak in debate, and to vote. No member can be individually deprived of these basic rights of membership—or of any basic rights concomitant to them, such as the right to make nominations or to give previous notice of a motion—except through disciplinary proceedings. Some organized societies define additional classes of “membership” that do not entail all of these rights. Whenever the term member is used in this book, it refers to full participating membership in the assembly unless otherwise specified. Such members are also described as “voting members” when it is necessary to make a distinction." This is the rule applicable to your organization's proceedings unless your bylaws, or higher authority such as applicable law, provide otherwise.

Were you a member of this "Panel" that was meeting?

My assumption concerning the facts was that a motion is made and adopted (or rejected) on day one of a two-day session. No motion to reconsider this vote is made on day one. The question is, if reconsideration is desired, must the motion to reconsider be made on day two of the session or, if on day two a date and time is fixed for an adjourned meeting, may the motion to reconsider be made during this adjourned meeting. The answer, of course, is that it must be made on day two.

I think you know the assumption that I made as to the meaning of the facts as stated, and I'll bet dollars to doughnuts that my assumption was correct.

The latter.

After a bit of prompting, we are told that the main motion pending was: "I move to adopt the proposed calendar." We have not been provided with this "proposed calendar" which is incorporated by reference into and constitutes a part of the main motion. We are then told that, while this motion was pending, the following motion was made: "I move to eliminate the June 1st meeting." This we are told was a motion to amend the pending main motion, but if so it certainly is not in proper form. Ordinarily, we might be able to put it in proper form, but we simply do not know enough about the pending main motion to enable us to do so. Then we are told that a motion was made to amend the pending motion to amend "by striking the entire primary amendment and substituting to make June 1st a virtual meeting" and are asked if this is a proper form of secondary amendment. It is simply not possible to answer this question prior to being provided with the facts needed to put what has been purported to be the proposed primary amendment in order.

I think what we need to see is what the "proposed calendar" looked like.

We certainly are in agreement on this point.

I think Mr. Novosielski has this right. Although we are still a little short on facts, it would appear that the motion to amend the main motion was a motion to strike out a paragraph from the main motion (more detailed facts may prove otherwise). If so, this opened the paragraph that would be struck out to improvement by secondary amendment (see 12:51).

Is this supposed to be an example of a subsidiary motion to amend a main motion? Doesn't look like one to me.

Why can't a point of order be raised when one of these resolutions is offered at the convention?

I am in full agreement with what Dr. Kapur has posted here, but would also note that, when these bylaws refer to a "mailbox ballot", they seem to be referring to a vote that is more of a vote by mail than it is a ballot vote. It appears that the object of taking such a vote is more to broaden the base of voters than to enable voters to keep how they vote a secret. Perhaps the bylaws contain some sort of definition of "mailbox ballot" which may shed additional light on the question now under consideration. This is interesting because, ordinarily, adoption of such a motion would result in a ballot vote being taken at the meeting, and also because the quoted bylaw provision regarding votes to be taken by "mailbox ballot" appears to mandate such a vote under designated circumstances. I suppose the motion "for a ballot vote" as described here is really a motion to declare that such designated circumstances exist.

The third suggestion should be enough assuming the undesired motion is an original main motion. Changing the rules in any respect just because of this nuisance seems to be overkill.

A rule requiring previous notice cannot be suspended. What, exactly, do your bylaws say concerning their amendment?

There is no such rule.

Yes, 50:12 applies, but there would seem to be no reason to assume that these non-members of the board were not properly appointed to serve as members of this committee, in which event I agree with Mr. Martin. There is no reason to believe that they cannot vote during meetings of this committee.

I think it would be helpful if you would quote exactly what your bylaws say in this connection.

"Mr. Smith moved 'that [blah, blah, blah]', which motion, after debate, was not agreed to. A motion to reconsider the vote on this motion was adopted, and upon reconsideration the motion was again rejected."

Well, I understood you to be saying that it is not in order to direct an officer to perform a duty which the bylaws place him under no obligation to perform. I think this is correct, and a motion directing him to do such a thing would be out of order at any meeting, regular or special. Apparently, I misunderstood what you were saying. A while back, I made reference to "a motion directing the secretary to publish a draft of the minutes within a certain period of time". Although I think such a motion might well be one arising in connection with the transaction of business at a special meeting, it may not be in order for the reason stated above. If so, it could instead be a motion requesting the secretary to publish a draft of the minutes within a certain period of time.

Not generally, I wouldn't think.

Yes, it is.

I gather that you would be making this same argument if this were all happening at a regular meeting rather than a special meeting. Have I got this right?

Or how about: "Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to correction of the misspelling of Mr. Merritt's name in the minutes of the meeting held on January 15, 2024."