Drake Savory

This confuses me too.  Usually the reason to table a motion is pretty obvious.

23 minutes ago, Joshua Katz said:

Why? Do you think the bylaw is ambiguous?

Perfectly clear that the Chairman can give up his authority on any and all matters.  My point is that the assembly can choose to have a Chair that acts as the Chair by removing them from office if they feel the Chair is delegating authority without good reason.

I agree with the OP's conclusion and the solution for a Chairman not serving the duties of the Chairman would be removal of the Chairman.

1 hour ago, Guest Greg S said:

3) In terms of a hypothetical, I can imagine a small group using such a suspension to filibuster. Imagine an open ended suspension "We will discuss X". 15 people of the 50 there stand up to speak, grandstanding, etc, and intended on taking their entire time for 2 1/2 hours of delay. Does anyone have a RORN reference for getting out of Suspension of the rules in that case?

 

"Mister (or Madame) President I move the Previous Question.  Passes 35 to 15.  

1 hour ago, Guest Greg S said:

2) In terms of my situation, I was wondering who and how it is determined that purpose of the suspension is complete? ( Does the chair just states so? Does it take a motion? Could just one person object and keep rules suspended?)
 

Interesting question.  Suppose the rules are Suspended to deal with X.  Motion is made, debate happens and the vote is taken.  Rules no longer suspended - pretty obvious right?

But then there is a motion to Reconsider.  Do the rules automatically get resuspended?  Or a motion is made to Postpone to a Definite Time.  When that time comes do you need another motion to suspend the rules?

Here's the thing, a member can nominate anyone who is eligible for the office.  p 431-433 "Nominations from the Floor".  There is nothing that explicitly says the member can nominate themselves but if the member were eligible then what would prevent them from nominating themselves?  Only a rule against it which doesn't exist and therefore is not in the book.  So for the OP there is no cite we can give you other than reading the section of nominations.

33 minutes ago, Richard Brown said:

I disagree.  The special rule of order supersedes the provision in RONR.  If the special rule of order prohibiting staff members from speaking without being asked to speak by the assembly is suspended, then the staff member is thereby permitted to speak upon being recognized by the chair.

You are right.  I claim 

1)  Lack of coffee

2)  I was talking to someone about a separate vote on a convention standing rule and what happens when it is not adopted when looking at this question.

1 hour ago, Joshua Katz said:

I'm not sure why you have this rule, since non-members have no right to speak anyway. I'm also not clear what suspension would mean. If you suspend the rule (by a higher margin than an ordinary motion) then...the staff member can speak.

I'm not sure about if the rule is suspended then it defaults to RONR which is ... a staff member cannot speak unless the deliberative assembly moves to hear from that person.

So suspending the rule has no effect.

On 4/13/2019 at 12:41 PM, Daniel H. Honemann said:

Well, the chair made a hash of it all, but since no one raised a point of order when the chair declared that "the motion for nomination" (whatever that is) carried, then it carried. If the result of adopting such a motion means that the nominee should be offered the job, then all's well.

Or given the situation, perhaps a Division of the Assembly before a Point of Order.

And minutes are not voted on, they are approved (with unanimous consent assumed) when no further corrections are offered.  The only voting would be if a member offers a correction that others disagree with.

Here's my thought.  In order to discuss (debate) at a meeting, you need a motion first such as, "I move that Bill purchase the GrassMaster 6000 not exceeding $650 including tax."  If there is a motion on the floor then the assembly can vote on it?  If a discussion is all that's wanted, then it should be handled as a committee of the whole where the vote is non-binding on the assembly and a member is allowed to debate an unlimited number of times.

One solution may be for the parent organization to prefer charges against the committee chair for their (non) handling of your motions to adjourn and have them removed from their chairmanship.

And of course by specifying "three year term" instead of simply serving two consecutive terms, one could argue that if a board member were appointed at any time after election that it would not count towards the limit as their term was not a full three years.  Historically, a similar pedantic interpretation of the word "term" is why Andrew Johnson was acquitted of violating the Tenure of Office Act since enough Senators decided a new term started when he took office.

One threshold of voting is a majority of the membership.  So let's say you have an association of Cat Sweater Knitters and each year they elect delegates to attend the Annual Conference.  What would constitute a majority of the membership for votes at the AC - a majority of the whole Association or a majority of the delegates elected?

12 hours ago, Guest RoxAnne said:

I don't understand why everyone is so mean.  I just wanted clarification as to WHERE to find the answer in Robert's Rules.  

Actually Dan's response to HHH is quite appropriate.  Refer to U.S. v Ballin but long story short, The House of Representatives used to count those abstaining from a vote as not counting toward the quorum of those attending.*  Speaker Reed said that that was not correct - if you are there you count towards the quorum even if you don't vote.  This means that the definition of a majority for voting (more than half the votes and abstentions do not count) and for a quorum (more than half of the members) while technically the same (more than half) are in practice different.  If you want to see an example of this, watch a meeting where the Chair will erroneously say that a vote of 4 yes, 3 no and 2 abstain did not pass since a majority of those voting did not say yes.

*  So if there were a House of 200 members with 101 attending, 2 Representatives could obstruct a bill simply by not voting.  The resulting vote 99-0-2 would not be valid since "a quorum was not present".

Some may.  Does it make a difference?

Assuming prior notice has been given for an organization's  proposed resolutions (not bylaw amendments) at the annual conference, can an amendment increase the scope of a resolution?

1 hour ago, Joshua Katz said:

I hesitate to agree with "always" because one of the things I work out ahead of time is "when I need you to stop, you agree to stop." After we've talked, the chair will decide what he decides, and of course I use this very sparingly, but I use a little card with a stop sign on it to signal this situation. I also keep a few other cards out that I can slip to him - in order, out of order, majority, 2/3, etc.

I had post its in different colors depending on the urgency.

I always would hand the Chair a post-it with whatever I needed to tell him and let him take it from there.  

On 2/15/2019 at 12:22 AM, Benjamin Geiger said:

And there's no way to perform automated unit testing on rules of order.

We need a Turing Parliamentarian.

Hey new user name.

IF the chair participates in debate, they are limited to speaking twice only.  We had a member that did the same thing the Chair in the OP did and the Chair admonished the member repeatedly but to no effect.  One meeting when that member made a third comment I raised the Point of Order that they had spoken twice and were thus barred from speaking anymore to the question.   

Sorry for the misinformation then.  I thought Point of Order and Call to Order were separate.

Shows what happens when my copy of RONR is at home.

That is not a Point of Order issue.

Personal attacks are a breach of decorum and so you would ask the Chair to call the member to order or you can do it yourself under certain conditions.  RONR discusses how it would escalate if the member refuses to come to order.

Just now, Richard Brown said:

Congratulations... and welcome!   We are happy to have you as an official member of the forum.... and as a member of NAP!  Passing the basic membership test indicates that you do have at least a rudimentary working knowledge of RONR.  Now, on to the RP exam. . . .  🙂

Thank you.  I have to wait while they are revising the RP test.  The live test seems interesting.

7 hours ago, Nosey said:

The problem is this:

The person I have a problem with is the association president, who acts as chair.

The other board members don’t know what a point of order is, or how to handle it, and neither does she. 

 

So you explain it to them with your copy of RONR handy. Although a Point of Order is not debatable you are allowed by the Chair to explain youself.   Keep it simple

A Point of Order is when a member believe the rules are violated.  Cite the rule in RONR.  Explain how it was violated.

If the Chair rules the Point not well taken then Appeal the decision of the Chair.