Joshua Katz

It seems to me that it would be more accurate to say the VP became President, and then resigned. So you now have two vacancies: the P and VP spots. Does your board have the power to fill vacancies? I don't understand how it is the case that the approved this person to fill that vacancy (i.e. filled the vacancy) and that there's also an election going on. Either the board filled the vacancy (because the bylaws say so) or it didn't. What am I missing? I also don't know what this means: It would seem to me that either he was qualified at the time of appointment and remains qualified, or he was not qualified, and remains not qualified. Personally, I don't know which, because I don't understand how you fill vacancies. If you fill them by election, I agree with the others. It doesn't seem to me, though, that your bylaws say he can't be appointed to fill a vacancy.

Does this organization not have a Vice-President?

With all respect, to that extent, I think the rules in RONR are incorrect. (Of course, readers should follow them instead of my rules of disorder, I'm just commenting.) If there is some question about the resignation, I agree with the rules in RONR, but where everyone knows the person wants out, the person has taken actions or made omissions consistent with that understanding (obviously, the body should not rush to accept a hastily-made resignation, but if the person has acted in a manner showing he wants nothing to do with the organization, such as returning property, etc.), and the body accepts it, in my opinion (and my opinion alone) there ought to be no need for discipline if the successors clause is absent. There might not even be, at least for quite some time, a reason for discipline, absent the screaming in my example.

Well, it might from a politeness perspective. But so far as the rules are concerned, a request is a request, and unless there is a right to the thing requested, it can be turned down (and in some cases must be). As a general matter, there is no right to know a committee's report in advance, to attend committee meetings, etc. (for non-members of the committee, of course). Thus, they didn't have to give you the text simply because you asked, although it might have been nice of them.

What if the board member gets into a fight with the Mayor over lunch, screams "I'm quitting and I want nothing to do with this city ever again!" and leaves, never submitting a letter or coming to another meeting? Are they stuck with him occupying the spot unless they either use discipline or a "until successors..." clause to remove him?

The resignation is effective when accepted. It sounds like you didn't take any action on it, but took up the question of replacing the member, which is sufficient. Is the issue whether or not you should believe the Mayor? I suppose that's up to you, but if the Mayor is lying, presumably the board member will show up at some point... In any case, you ask if it's legal. We can't answer that, we can only answer questions about parliamentary procedure. Finally, regarding "brought up another member to be voted on" (member of what? presumably not the board), the question is what your rules say about filling vacancies. Absent any such governing provisions, in law, bylaws, or elsewhere, the body which first chose the member fills the vacancy. You don't say who is supposed to be voting on this, but I'm assuming it's the board, which may or may not be proper.

In a world where Presidents follow the rules, probably because there was no urgent business to attend to, no emergency, and the motion was an effort to, without debate, not deal with the amendment, rather than to, for instance, deal with other logically prior matters first. I wasn't there, of course, though.

Bylaw issues aside, this ruling was almost certainly correct (although perhaps not worded perfectly - rather than "refusing to entertain" the motion should be ruled out of order). I concur with Mr. Brown. I'd add that all they require is submission to the committee, which then "reviews them" at the next meeting. (Could a creative person argue that something cannot be reviewed unless it is first viewed? Perhaps, but then they'd need to explain how the term "judicial review" works.) The "reviewing" here sounds more like presenting, but potato, potato, I guess (that works better verbally than in writing). The organization can ultimately decide. Well, it seems odd that the parliamentarian would use RONR (or Robert's Rules, but we'll set that aside because we can get around it) as a guide for meetings when RONR is not the parliamentary authority, not least because the parliamentarian should advise the chair, so speaking of guiding the parliamentarian just sounds wrong. Anyway, though, there it is - I don't think this line in the description of the parliamentarian is sufficient to adopt RONR or any other parliamentary authority.

Just ask Sir Roger Casement (well, you could if there had been a comma where one arguably belonged, and he wasn't executed), or Oakhurst Dairy.

Well, the second motion was out of order anyway, but regardless, it is too late to do anything about it. In the future, raise two points of order: first, that there can only be one pending main motion at a time, and second, that a motion not to do something is out of order. (It's particularly silly, and potentially unfair, to do so when a motion to do so is already pending - just vote no.) But, my conclusion is that you're not getting a dock this year.

Agreeing with Mr. Harrison, even if the second motion was out of order, the next meeting is too late to raise a point of order. The motion remains adopted. To bring it up at the next meeting, the member could use rescind or amend something previously adopted, or, if the member voted on the prevailing side and the next meeting is within the same session, reconsider.

Not. Exactly what's going on with this one is not totally clear to me, but as a general rule, incumbents cannot declare that they will remain in office without an election. If your bylaws do not call for a ballot vote, and there is only one qualified candidate, then she will be the only candidate, and will be declared elected by the chair (presumably). If the bylaws do require a balloted vote, then a balloted vote is required.

I'm not clear on it either, but do you have a source on answering questions on other topics not being permitted? For instance, I don't think it's prohibited to say "according to your published materials, you have a choice of turkey, chicken, or vegetable wrap for lunch." But I'm happy to be wrong. (I once went to a court proceeding where one attorney, who had flown in for the hearing, never had a chance to say anything more than "that would be a Friday, Your Honor.")

Well, a good chair really shouldn't ask the parliamentarian to do so and put him in a hard place. After all, if the parliamentarian speaks to the assembly, and the chair then decides otherwise, the parliamentarian loses credibility. So, in general, it's a bad idea. (When I serve as a parliamentarian, one of my requests is that I be in a position to whisper to the chair and be confident that no microphone will pick me up.) But so far as the rules are concerned, I don't see that there are limits to answering questions when the chair so directs, outside of entering into debate on the merits of a question, although I'm hard pressed to think of what anyone would want to ask a parliamentarian other than parliamentary questions. But personally, I tell the chair ahead of time not to put me in that position, and if I'm put in it, I'm not happy, and try to avoid answering if possible. It's not always possible.

I agree, but I'd add that, assuming it is permitted, she still gets only one vote.

It's too late to object, but the parliamentarian shouldn't be making motions either.

Well, a person can nominate himself, whether the election is by ballot or not. I'm not sure what to do with the parenthetical here, though.

This is what I figured was going on, and it is improper. It amounts to debate unrelated to the pending motion. As I commented above, they may briefly make their suggestions, and then they may be quiet and let you make your motion. Your chair should not have allowed this debate - they can debate these points, as appropriate, on a motion to amend (some of these comments relate to things that would not be appropriate as amendments).

Start out with more time for each time. Or you can vote no on the motions to extend (and, prior to the meeting, encourage others to think about doing so as well). You might also want to get to the root issue of why so much time is needed. Are people not coming in with fully-cooked motions? Consider making motions to refer, postpone, or otherwise get them perfected. Are people grandstanding and speaking when there's no persuasive value to what they're saying? Well, if they want to do that, there's no much you can do, except consider restricting who can attend your meetings so that grandstanding has less of a payoff (assuming this is a board meeting of some sort). In other words, figure out why there's so much talking relative to doing.

Good point.

I agree with the rest of what Mr. Kapur says. As to the part dealing with my comments, the key point seems to be: What's more, the member making a suggestion can "quickly rise and, with little or no explanatory comment, informally suggest one or more modifications in the motion, which at this point the maker can accept or reject. . . ." Five minutes of "well I think . . ." bears little resemblance, in my opinion, to what RONR is describing. It's an effort to workshop the motion. Finally, the "process" described in the OP does not sound like one where the mover was fairly given the opportunity to reject changes. So, three suggestions. If the members did as described above, and the OP accepted or rejected the suggestions, this would take about 30 seconds. But it took 5 minutes, so I suspect they were doing something other than quickly and with little or no explanatory comment, informally suggesting modifications. How did the Secretary get involved? None of these "suggestions," if not accepted by the mover, go into the minutes. Which leads me to suspect that the Secretary was just changing the motion as the suggestions came in, without the mover having the chance to accept or reject them. I also suspect, to get over the 5 minute mark, that they likely were debating these suggestions.

Oh, if you keep people there long enough, someone will change his mind...or leave.

And, as a general rule, others don't get to rewrite your motions. The chair should tell them all to shut up while you're making your motion. If they don't like it, they can refuse to second it, vote no, or move to amend. What they can't do is insist on workshopping your motion while you're making it.

I also wonder if the organization has some rule about the chair inviting people.

I do not think there should be a notation. I don't think it matters why it's there, and in fact, such a notation strikes me as akin to the secretary inserting editorial remarks. If they're there, they're there. I suppose it would depend on the exact language of the motion, but what we've been told so far is that the assembly ordered that they be in the draft minutes, and that's been, I think, fully executed. If anything, I could see requiring a suspension of the rules rather than aspa.