Benjamin Geiger

There is the motion to Rescind or Amend Something Previously Adopted (p. 305ff). Assuming the legislative body follows RONR, that is possible. However, there may be (and probably is) other law that supersedes RONR.

The way I interpreted OP's question is this: Alice (the current president), Bob, and Cindy are running for the office of president. A vote is taken by ballot, with all members (including Alice, Bob, and Cindy) voting. Alice and Bob earn 7 votes each and Cindy earns 5. Alice claims to have the authority to cast an additional vote, presumably for herself, to break the tie. As so often occurs, it comes down to what the bylaws say. RONR's procedure is clear (to me at least), but the bylaws could easily have overridden it, and if "Our constitution states that the president should cast the vote" is taken at face value, that's precisely what happened. Guest Julie, what do your constitution and bylaws say on the matter? Please quote them verbatim, don't paraphrase.

Take a look at p. 471 and pp. 646ff. TL;DR: Yes, if the chair "names" the offender, then the "naming" (and the words that led to it) should be entered into the minutes.

I mean, I could boot the whole thing into WIndows if I wanted to set aside 100+ GB of my 500GB drive for it, or I could run a virtual machine (which would still require a sizable investment of drive space). And that doesn't help with the tablet. PDFs keep the original page layout, so that's an option that doesn't risk having references go awry.

I had heard about that, but as it's only available for Windows, it only helps me when I'm at home sitting in front of my Windows PC, and not when I'm away from home and using my (five-year-old) Mac laptop, or at a meeting on my (year-old off-brand) Android tablet. Plus the price is prohibitive; I'm currently unemployed so I can't afford $75 for another copy of RONR.

Tangentially: Are there any plans to release RONR 12th ed. (or even 11th ed.) in any sort of electronic format (ePub, Kindle, etc)? I know it'd be a lot more convenient if I were able to pull up the book on my tablet instead of carrying around dead trees.

Is the committee acting on its own, and bringing the motion to the membership as a fait accompli? Or is the committee specifying the agenda to be followed, preventing other new business from being introduced?

So I guess the question is: what can't unanimous consent be used for? The only things that leap to mind are situations where the bylaws mandate a specific form of vote (ballot or roll call)...

I think the question is whether the 3/4 requirement is 3/4 of those present and voting, or 3/4 of the entire membership. The former can be done with a division of the assembly (if it's not obvious from the voice vote). The latter requires a counted vote of some sort, along with knowledge of the number of members, but not necessarily a roll call.

I was going back to the original scenario where the five-minute rule was either in the parliamentary authority that was removed or was a special rule of order that was rescinded, leaving the custom behind.

Perhaps I'm the last person who should be complaining about angels-dancing-on-pinheads questions (seeing as how I, as a programmer, deal with those sorts of hypotheticals in systems on a regular basis*), but from a practical angle, how would one change custom? Going back to the 5 minute rule: I'd presume that if the assembly no longer wishes to follow the 5 minute rule, having rescinded the rule that imposed it, then when the chair cuts off a speaker after five minutes, a member can raise a point of order (and appeal if the chair persists)? * Does it seem to anyone else that programmers and computer-science types (such as myself) are somewhat overrepresented in the parliamentary community? (Of the five bios on the back cover, one includes a reference to a CS degree and another a reference to a degree in mathematics focusing on logic...) Is this just how we think?

I'd imagine that in certain circumstances the chair could get unanimous consent to adjourn? EDIT: In other words, the chair could say something like "There is no longer a quorum. If there is no objection, we will adjourn. (pause) Hearing no objection..."

Let me see if I understand what happened: A motion is made that "The board will consider a bid from ABC Lanscaping to maintain the landscape area." That motion does not pass (earning less than a majority in the positive). Somehow that failed motion gets "rescinded". Am I correct in this? If so, there's nothing to "rescind", as there is no previously adopted motion. If you want the board to consider the bid, someone needs to make a motion to that effect and the assembly has to vote on it.

As I understand it, one person can fill multiple roles but they still only get one vote. This is, of course, assuming your bylaws don't specify something different.

Again, I'm curious how much of that is because the authors expected the president to be the only officer that is an ex officio member of all committees. I'm definitely going to recommend that this is clarified in our next bylaws revision (as I mentioned before, it's coming soon). In this case, at least, it's moot because we don't have a nominating committee.

Okay, I'm home and I have the Book. RONR 11th ed. p. 457 ll. 1-6 says: This portion by itself implies that being an ex-officio member is what causes the president to not count toward quorum. But then there's p. 497, ll. 22-29: So yeah, I'm pretty sure Mr. Novosielski is right on this one. I think I'll have to suggest adding a clause clarifying things (putting the vice chairs in the same category as the chair, or even possibly removing their ex officio status) when we revise our bylaws (which should happen in a few months, as soon as our parent organization finishes amending theirs).

I was under the impression that it wasn't addressed because it's so uncommon for other officers to be ex officio members of all committees. (I know I certainly haven't seen it before.) But I don't have the Book in front of me at the moment.

I know that the president of an organization doesn't count toward quorum if the bylaws specify that they are ex officio members of every committee. Does this extend to other officers with a similar provision? In our organization, the chair and both vice chairs are ex officio members of every committee. With five appointed members and three ex officio members, does that make our quorum five (majority of 8), four (majority of 7), or three (majority of 5)?

Does the election typically occur directly after nominations are closed? Also, wouldn't the election itself be a motion with a blank (of the form "that [blank] be chosen as Dogcatcher"), and the ballot is for filling of the blank?

Given the current political climate, the question of procedures for handling accusations of sexual harassment within our group has come up. (It should be noted that the discussion is hypothetical at this point, as nobody has been accused.) As I understand our bylaws, they only contain explicit discipline requirements for violations of the loyalty oath and for excessive absences from meetings. If (again, hypothetically speaking) we had a member who had sexually harassed someone else, can we specify that as a charge for a trial, or is the lack of a cover-all "members shall not do stuff that makes us look bad" clause in the bylaws going to cause problems?

It's a full sentence, with a subject (as Joshua Katz has already pointed out). Presumably the object (the thing you haven't done and can't do) is implied in context.

We'll be giving notice of the amendments in February and introducing them in March. I'm probably overthinking things, but this is the first time I've served in this sort of role. I just want to make sure I have all of my metaphorical ducks in a row before I start. One of the amendments is to strike an entire section, so every section after that is going to have to be renumbered. Actually, it appears that (so far) there are no added sections, only some struck and some substituted or amended. Could we get around this by simply replacing each struck section with a placeholder?

I'm working on several amendments to the bylaws of an organization I belong to. Some of these amendments involve either striking sections or introducing new sections. Of course, this will require renumbering of sections. So, there are some questions: Would it be overstepping bounds to include a form of the verbiage from p. 599? Would this let us renumber and fix references in one fell swoop? (Assuming that the former would be overstepping: ) If I move to change the numbering of the remainder of the sections, do I need to explicitly list all of the numbers that are changing, or can I move to renumber the sections? Likewise for cross references: if there is a reference to (e.g.) section 9.3.5.2, and that section gets renumbered to 8.3.6.2, will I need to explicitly list the existing references and the new section numbers?

(With the proviso that the contents of your organization's bylaws supersede those in RONR, of course. If the bylaws say they can, they can, but otherwise, no.)

You'll need to contact an attorney in your state or country.