Joshua Katz

Unless it is a committee meeting.

Is the speaker a member? If not, you can kick him out. If so, see the discussion in RONR of penalties for offenses within a meeting. In short, you call him to order, then name the offender, then the assembly itself can use an abbreviated disciplinary procedure to deal with him. If you've kicked him out but he has refused to leave, call the police or other legally-authorized personnel, such as private security.

Parliamentary procedure is about how you make decisions, not what decisions you make. We can't give you advice on your lease agreements. However, charges for members need to be authorized in the bylaws, unless an applicable procedural law authorizes them.

How about term of office? With this information, I think we can determine how this vacancy should be filled, if you tell us how the term of office is defined.

If the commander is on the board, what do they say about a vacancy on the board? Ignoring vacancies for a moment, somewhere in the bylaws they (hopefully) define the term of office of the commander. What do they say there? Please quote exactly what they say about that, if anything. One term for a person unilaterally deciding to remain in a position to which he was not re-elected, unless the rules call for that, is "coup." The commander might say he will hold the office until it is filled, but unless your rules call for that, his words are meaningless. He doesn't just get to decide what happens. Finally, I think it's been asked before, but is there a vice-commander or similar position?

Exactly. It seems to me that a large portion of the questions here involve the passive voice construction. Plea to questioners: please tell us who is telling you things. Second plea to questioners: don't listen to people who are self-interested and/or can't support what they say. We can work with "the President says he gets to stay in office." But, more importantly, the passive voice construction here comes from, I think, a more fundamental issue in parliamentary law: please understand that, if the assumptions and rules of RONR apply, the assembly is in charge. Many issues we see here result from assemblies which listen instead of acting or exercising their own power. Boards are not in charge. Presidents are not in charge. (Speaking about ordinary organizations here, and unless the bylaws say otherwise.) The assembly is in charge, it gets to interpret the rules, it determines what is in the bylaws and what powers boards and officers have, and it gets the final say.

No.

I believe you are correct. Additional power is not an "additional instruction." However, if the committee has reported back a recommendation, and the assembly then says "so let it be done," that is an additional instruction. It hasn't granted the committee any power - the assembly has decided to follow the recommendation, and to use the committee members as the labor, so to speak, to do it. It is not the same as saying "do whatever it is you decide."

You should raise a point of order regarding the qualifications for honorary membership in the bylaws at the next meeting. But if it's anything like the FDs I've been in, consider bringing a pizza box or something to deflect the things that get thrown at you. Also, you will want to line up people to support you, to second an appeal, etc. ahead of time. Springing it on people will look, to people who don't understand why rules matter, a lot like "this jerk is attacking our heroic former leader!"

It's also interesting, although maybe too nit-picky, that boards have only the powers delegated to them - they don't write the bylaws, and they can't reserve a power they don't already have. But it is likely everyone knows what this means.

It sounds like something akin to a consent calendar.

I, in turn, am not sure what's being objected to. Of course you can lower the threshold or notice requirements for amending the bylaws, if you do so, as I suggest, by changing the part of your bylaws dealing with bylaw amendments. So, here is what is being proposed: amending the bylaws to give some committee the power to fix grammatical errors (by specifying a text on which to rely) so long as the meaning isn't changed. At the same time, that same committee can be empowered to reorganize the bylaws, again, without changing the meaning. But what if there's grumbling that, in fact, they made a substantive change? We could wash our hands of it, and say "well, then whoever, probably the assembly, ordinarily amends the bylaws, can amend it right back." But I think that's less than ideal, because it, in effect, requires the same vote to prevent a change as to make a change. So, instead, I suggest that the same amendment allow the assembly, if that's who ordinarily amends the bylaws, be able to say "nope, that stylistic change is disallowed" by a lower threshold.

No, but here is what you can do: You can adopt a bylaw to this effect. It could, for instance, empower a committee for this purpose (or the board, if you're brave) to make changes in accordance with the CMOS where a bylaw provision clearly violates same, so long as the change does not impact its meaning, and to reorder where such reordering does not impact the meaning. You can also write it to allow the body which ordinarily makes changes to reject such a change by a lower vote than it requires to make the change in the first place - say, a majority vote.

I missed this important detail. Please ignore my comments above.

It is not entirely clear to me that this rule can be suspended and nominations reopened. I think it is a matter of interpretation for your organization. If a motion to suspend the rules and elect without a vote fails, and a voice vote goes against you, it seems to me that the most practical answer will be to reopen nominations, and that that would be a reasonable interpretation. Regardless, a member could move to vote by ballot, which permits write-ins.

I know it's not terribly helpful, but my opinion is that the bylaw in question is a hopeless mess and I have no idea what your organization should do, other than amend it.

I agree, with the note that a member who wishes to see someone else have the office should object to unanimous consent, vote against suspending if put to a vote, and move to reopen nominations. Perhaps. What exactly do they say?

That's up to the secretary. Until they are approved by the assembly, they aren't minutes - they are the secretary's notes, and will only become minutes upon being approved. The secretary can do whatever he'd like to write them, including consulting with others to make sure he's got it right, but he isn't obligated to do it. What he is obligated to do is come to the next meeting with draft minutes to present. The assembly will ultimately make sure they are correct in the approval process.

In general, honorifics given to one person at a time are not maintained after leaving office, while those which refer to many people simultaneously are. In the former case, they may be used if modified so as not to imply current occupancy, e.g. "The 43rd President of the United States." (As far as this rule is concerned, it is proper to refer to Hillary Clinton as "Secretary Clinton" since there are several Cabinet Secretaries at a time, except in a context where it clearly refers to the State Department. It is improper, in my opinion, for other reasons, and I think she should be referred to as "Senator Clinton." The reasons are both that I think the rule of referring to people by their "highest rank" is being misapplied. First, elective positions should outweigh appointive positions in such a consideration. Second, Secretary is not a rank at all (it's a role), and so not her highest rank, while Senator is a rank. Cabinet member is also a rank, but we don't call them Member X for other reasons.) Within a state, therefore, and in the context of state government, a former Governor is not called Governor, but rather referred to by a similar formula, or simply as The Honorable, which may be used by any former elected official. In a broader context, though, such a person may be called Governor, such as when running for President, since, on the national scene, there are many Governors at once. Within the organization, it seems to me, there is only one chairman, and therefore he should not be referred to by that title, but rather former chairman, the 34th chairman, or the like. Outside the organization, there are many chairmen, and hence no reason he cannot use the term.

Well, good. We can't answer legal questions here, but in my opinion all went fine, in the end, from a parliamentary standpoint. Incidentally, while someone may or may not have been trying to pull a fast one (we've only heard your side, after all), I don't think they chose a very good way to do so, or, at least, they chose one that is easily thwarted so long as members are doing what they're supposed to do - namely, paying attention to inaccuracies in the minutes. From a parliamentary standpoint (as opposed to legal), they chose a poor means for a second reason: modifying the minutes doesn't actually change history, just how history is recorded. That is, the minutes are evidence as to what happened, but if (to use a more extreme example) they had simply had the minutes say "the motion was not adopted," it would still have been adopted, and you would still be able to insist on enforcing it as a point of order, you'd just have a tougher argument (and you might want to fight on the minutes first). However, I realize that in this instance, there is legal significance to the minutes (which, in many states, extends to the minutes needing to be significantly different than they would be under RONR).

Well, on a side note, a vote on approval of the minutes is not the proper procedure. Rather, the chair should ask for changes, and once all changes are dealt with, declare the minutes (sigh) approved. But, back on point - then what happened? The commission received inaccurate minutes. We're not told, though, what was done about it. What should have been done, for future reference (sigh) is that you should move to amend the minutes so that they read correctly. None of the out of meeting actions described are, so far as RONR is concerned, the right way to deal with the problem. By the way, are these proper, RONR-style, minutes, or more similar to a transcript? This is not quite the right thing to be flabbergasted about. Minutes, before being approved, are just notes - in particular, the Secretary's notes. The Secretary doesn't necessarily need to provide them to anyone before the meeting. If they are presented to someone, the Secretary is free to include, or not, any suggestions. However, in this case, we're told they came from the "recording clerk." If this is similar to the municipality where I was on Planning, that would be an employee, who is subject to instruction from the chair between meetings (and instructions from the committee more generally). But none of that is the point, because what matters is what the commission approves.

Yes. But it is not obligated to maintain a system of bookkeeping allowing for such designations, and so on.

I don't know that I agree. If the bylaws require a person to pay, I'm not convinced someone else paying on his behalf will work.

I agree, except that this is nothing to fear.

Yes.