Drake Savory

On 2/23/2023 at 7:15 PM, Josh Martin said:

It is conceivable such a motion could violate the rules of decorum.

Depending on the OP's definition of "discriminatory" and "exclusionary", the motion may also violate basic Parliamentary Law.  For example, "I move that no member of (insert political party here) be allowed to vote on the main motion."

On 2/18/2023 at 9:33 AM, Guest Larry S said:

Would a 3-0 vote be allowed to carry a motion and a second? Or, if our Constitution says the Board Chair can only vote to bread a tie, would a 2-0 vote carry a motion and a second?

Assuming the quorum situation is settled (How do your bylaws define a member?) then any unanimous vote, even 1-0, would carry a motion.  And I suspect that these are regular main motions so in that case under RONR, any majority vote (1-0; 2-1, 2-0; 3-2; 3-1, 3-0, etc.) would carry the motion.

One issue I have with this is it sounds like the Chair is pre-debating i.e. having their views on the motion known before the motion is made as they cannot enter debate once the motion is made.  I suppose the Chair could just be providing objective information but we would need more information from the OP to know for sure. 

ETA:  Yes I know this would be allowed with small board rules.

On 1/20/2023 at 8:02 AM, Josh Martin said:

No, this is not correct. By voting not to approve the budget, the only effect is that the board has decided not to approve the budget. This vote, in itself, does not instruct the Budget and Finance Committee to do anything. It may well be that a logical next step would be to adopt instructions that this committee submit a new budget, but a separate motion would be required to do so. It also may well be that the committee may choose to pursue such an action on its own initiative.

There could be a bylaw stating that should the budget not be approved, the Budget & Finance Committee shall take action to ...

Am I correct that should this amendment passes, the assembly needs to immediately elect a Secretary pro-tem until the new Secretary takes office?

Maybe the maker of the motion asked for unanimous consent to make the motion and waive the first reading.  Thus there was no second but without objection that motion was in order.

On 12/17/2022 at 5:23 PM, Richard Brown said:

The problem, though, is that if the outgoing president is not reelected to the board, he is no longer a board member when the new board convenes. Since he is no longer a board member, and the officers have to be selected from among the board members, that leads to the question whether he is in fact still an officer. I think technically he is not,

I think technically he is.  According to their bylaws, you only need to be a member of the Board when selected.  Unless there is another rule elsewhere that we don't know about, you remain an officer even if you leave the Board.

Why was the motion due for a vote?  Was it a motion from a previous meeting that was postponed and then brought up as a special order?  Was it really not a motion but rather a talking point to discuss in order to formulate a proper main motion? A motion made by a committee as part of a report?  Something else?  Dis the Chair recess the meeting to hold the discussion? I think we need more information on what the agenda item was exactly.

Maybe I'm missing something in the scenario but given the OP isn't it entirely possible that the Previous Question to Limit Debate passes and then the motion to Limit Debate passes, then the Previous Question fails for the main motion (probably because there are now limits in place) and so the assembly is left with the main motion still being debated with the limits now in place.  

On 11/25/2022 at 6:24 PM, Gary Novosielski said:

There is no mechanism in RONR to reverse them under the conditions you describe. 

If the position has not been filled, could a current member move to Rescind the acceptance of the resignation?

Point a) Yes and even if there are corrections, once they are all made the Chair (not can but) does declare the minutes approved as read/corrected.

I'm confused by the second meeting.  How can it be the same?  You certainly don't have the same people make the exact same motions with the exact same debate in the second meeting, do you?

There is no motion to adopt the minutes.  After all corrections have been made (voted on if necessary) the Chair simply declares that with no further correction, the minutes are approved.

On 9/9/2022 at 3:09 PM, Tomm said:

Question: Does this eliminate the ability for the Chair to use "unanimous consent" as method of voting?

In an election, this is the same as "voting by acclamation" and by Rule 46:40 electing by acclamation is out of order since you specify voting by ballot as the way to vote.   

That's what I thought but "class of business" is cross-reference to "order of business" in the index which points to 3:15 to 3:17 and Section 41.  Looking at 3:16 it would seem that Rule 50:8 would be like if there was a Committee Oversight Committee to which all reports of special committees are automatically referred to.

On 8/30/2022 at 7:34 PM, Gary Munson said:

In the case of a single candidate for a single open seat, my understanding is that it only takes one ballot returned marked for the candidate to be elected. Ballots returned not marked for the candidate are regarded as abstensions. So the candiate got the majority of votes cast, in fact 100% of the votes cast because there is no one else to vote for. 

Your understanding is incorrect under RONR as write-in votes are allowed.

I know of one organization whose bylaws require a parliamentarian at their Annual Meeting so in that case the Parliamentarian cannot be removed, merely replaced.

Rule 50:8 states that a proposed standing committee must be done through a Special Rule of Order if "all business of a certain class is to be automatically referred to the committee".  Classes of business are a reference to the agenda or orders of a day so I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around what automatically referring that class of business to a committee would look like.   So what would that look like?

Why do I have a feeling the problem will show (yet again) why having the office of "Immediate Past President" is a bad idea.

I'm just curious who would raise such a Point of Order.  The old members that waved their hands and presto - the members are replaced?  The new "members" that have their position solely based on that parliamentary prestidigitation?

On 8/2/2022 at 9:57 PM, Guest-555 said:

My statement there was to specify that all of the members of the executive committee, who's terms had also all expired before replacement, resigned after appointing a chair. 

Since the Executive Committee are the 5 elected officers, then are you saying they resigned their offices or just their role on the Executive Committee but yet are still officer.

If they resigned as officers, what do your bylaws say about replacing officers.  If the second, then I'm not sure that as per your bylaws they can still be officers and claim to not be members of the Executive Committee.  

And I think this thread vs mine illustrates the dichotomy in two scenarios

1)  Members resign (Request to be Excused From Duty) that the assembly must accept to be effective under RONR.  The acceptance was not done (or done at an inquorate meeting) and therefore they are still members and a quorum is still theoretically possible.

2)  Members resign.   This is done either in a licit manner contained in the bylaws or special rules OR the members tender their resignation, the assembly (including them) vote to accept it, they leave and those left realize, "Oh no!  We don't have a quorum."  In this case a quorum in impossible unless there is some sort of out, like the members of the parent body can call a special meeting themselves and fill the vacancies.

I would argue this thread is a case of the 1st scenario.  In July, if the 4 remaining members have to vote to accept the resignations then up until that vote, those that resigned are still members so why is the claim made that they cannot attend the meeting?  T

First, was a Point of Order made at the time?

Looking at the motion to look for more spots, did it change or undo the motion to place the the park at PR1?  I would argue it did not.  IF in looking for more locations the assembly finds a different spot to place the park then it would be that motion that Amends Something Previously Adopted and would require a 2/3 vote.

Let's look at another angle.  Despite what the Board does in violation of quorum rules, are all of those healed in May if the assembly Ratifies their actions? 

On 7/30/2022 at 2:25 PM, Gary Novosielski said:

I've had this happen a time or two. 

Me too.  We now have a special rule of order that the Chair can appoint a Secretary pro-tem so that all of the hunting for a p-t can be done before the meeting and not have the need for an election during the meeting.

I based my response on "back in the agenda" meaning the same meeting.