Shmuel Gerber

What about Principle #7? "The imposition of a definite penalty for a particular action prohibits the increase or diminution of the penalty. If the bylaws state that a member shall be dropped from membership on a board if he misses three consecutive regular meetings of the board, he cannot be retained by vote of the board, nor can more severe penalties be imposed, such as a fine in addition. If, for example, it is desired to allow the board to diminish or waive the penalty, or increase it, the bylaw must not make it definite or must specifically provide for diminution, waiver, or enlargement."

The board can agree that if the member resigns, further disciplinary investigation will be dropped. I see no need for the board to inform the membership of charges that are not being brought, when the whole purpose of the resignation is to avoid the embarrassment of expulsion.

Doing this would require the EC to actually meet, and we have no reason to meet other than this requirement. Which is why I was thinking originally that I just need to have one EC meeting per year and record all the queued-up EC decisions in the minutes of that meeting, so there's something in our minutes book. A reason to meet would be if any member of the executive committee disagrees with a proposed action. The purpose of having a committee or board instead of one officer make these decisions is to have the benefit of more than one person's opinion, not to rubberstamp every action ever proposed.

The rule in RONR (12th ed.) 24:3 states, "when the chair rules on a question about which there cannot possibly be two reasonable opinions, an appeal would be dilatory and is not allowed." A member may appeal from the decision of the chair even if the decision is based on a rule, if the member disagrees with how the rule should be interpreted and applied to the particular situation.

This second paragraph is confusing because, as you say in the first paragraph, there should not be a motion to reconsider the vote on the motion to Amend, but rather a motion to reconsider the votes on both the main motion and the amendment.

This is getting well beyond the scope of the forum. @FreedomThroughRules If there is anything from your last post that you want to save, please do so right away because pretty soon it will probably be deleted.

Then what the [bleep] have we been talking about for the past 20+ responses?

If the Constitution makes no mention of standing rules, then I would tend to agree that no standing rules can be adopted. But it does provide for rules of parliamentary procedure (Robert's Rules of Order and special rules of order), so I don't think many will be persuaded that the provision has no effect.

Haven't you heard? We're all textualists now.

The text of 44:13, "In an appeal from the decision of the chair, a tie vote sustains the chair’s decision, even though his vote created the tie, on the principle that the decision of the chair can be reversed only by a majority." refers specifically to the motion known as Appeal, as discussed in §24 (see especially 24:3(7)). It has nothing to do with how the chair decides to vote on some substantive question. That is a vote of the chair, not a decision of the chair.

Then they should have attended the meeting. That's true under the rules in RONR. But I can see why it may not be self-evident in all cases. For example, suppose the annual dues are currently $100 and notice is given of a motion to amend the amount to $10, with the rationale that the organization should charge only minimal dues to broaden the membership and should raise the needed funds by other means. There may be many members who are perfectly OK with adopting such an amendment, but would be adamantly opposed to reducing the dues to $90, which would neither encourage much new membership nor provide the funds needed to run the organization. If such members think that this amendment exceeds the scope of notice, they would be wrong but not illogical.

I don't recall that discussion (which of course doesn't prevent anyone from finding it if it exists), but I think I do recall a fairly recent disagreement over whether it takes a 2/3 vote to adopt an agenda setting a time for adjournment at a meeting with a pre-existing order of business, as would be required to adopt an agenda setting a special order. My contention is that a majority vote is sufficient to set the time for adjournment. In short, I'm saying that to schedule a time to adjourn takes a majority vote; the assembly can then adjourn earlier by majority vote (at the time that it wants to adjourn, although not while other business is pending), but it will take more than a majority vote to delay the time for adjournment.

By that logic, the entire article specifying the parliamentary authority should be ignored. As Mr. Martin has already noted, in any organization the Constitution supersedes any conflicting provisions of adopted standing rules.

Because the paragraph is dealing principally with adjourning without a motion, and this case is distinguished from what is treated in the next paragraph: "21:15 When it appears that there is no further business in a meeting of an ordinary local society that normally goes through a complete order of business (41) at each regular meeting (9), the chair, instead of waiting or calling for a motion to adjourn, can ask, “Is there any further business?” If there is no response, the chair can then say, “Since there is no further business, the meeting is adjourned.”"

By the way, I think the bolded sentence in my reply above was added in the 10th edition, but I'm too lazy to check right now.

According to Table II, No. 3, a motion to adjourn in advance of a time already set requires (only) a majority vote. I think the book is pretty clear about the fact that the adoption of an agenda or program does not mean that adjourning earlier will require more than a majority vote: "21:14 Cases Where the Assembly Can Adjourn Without a Motion. If an hour for adjourning a meeting within a convention or other session of more than one meeting has been scheduled—either in an agenda or program or by the adoption of a motion setting a time—no motion to adjourn is necessary when that hour arrives. The chair simply announces the fact and declares the meeting adjourned, as described for a recess in 20:6. If the assembly does not then wish to adjourn, the matter is handled as a case of setting aside the orders of the day, as explained in 18:8 (see also 41:56). If such a meeting wishes to adjourn earlier, it is done by a main motion, which, however, can be adopted by a majority vote (see 21:3). …" I don't see any rule that would make the vote requirement different from a majority in a session consisting of a single meeting. The only scenario I could think of where more than a majority vote would be required to adjourn is if it is desired to fix, in advance, a different time for adjourning than the time that has been previously set. In that case, the assembly is not attempting to adjourn immediately, which would require only a majority vote, but is instead attempting to amend something previously adopted, which in the case of an adopted agenda requires either a 2/3 vote or the vote of a majority of the entire membership.

The rules in RONR generally assume that there is a whole number of members, each of whom is entitled to cast one vote (if present at the time of the vote). "Majority of the voting power" could indicate that multiple or fractional votes are possible.

This is news to me. 😀

If the agenda was adopted at the meeting, then the chair should announce when the time for adjournment has been reached. At that point a motion can be made to set aside the orders of the day (i.e. to not adjourn), or the chair can put the question on proceeding to adjourn, or a member can move to extend the time by a certain amount. Any of these procedures requires a two-thirds vote in order not to adjourn. If there is no such vote, then the chair declares the meeting adjourned. However, if the agenda was not adopted at the meeting, then it has no effect on when the meeting ends (unless your organization has a special rule giving it such force). Also, under the rules in RONR, there is no speakers list that has to be gone through; members are recognized one at a time as they obtain the floor. Even in a large meeting where speakers may line up at a microphone, members who are lined up have no special claim when debate is closed or the meeting is set to end.

How and by whom was the end time of the meeting scheduled?

An individual member cannot "make an amendment", but can move to amend a pending main motion in a particular way. Such a motion to Amend is a subsidiary motion and is not subject to an Objection to Consideration.

The letters in RONR stand for "Rules [of] Order Newly Revised".

I think the text cited by Mr. Mervosh answers your question: "Consideration of a revision of the bylaws is in order only when prepared by a committee that has been properly authorized to draft it either by the membership or by an executive board that has the power to refer such matters to a committee." "A proposal to substitute a new set of bylaws that is submitted by anyone other than such an authorized committee is not improper, but it is not treated as a general revision. In such a case, only changes within the scope of those contained in the substitute can be considered, as described in the previous paragraph (57:4)." So, assuming the committee is not authorized to propose a revision, it can still propose a substitute for the existing bylaws. Normally the rule would then be that "Portions of the substitute which remain as in the existing version cannot be amended, since they involve areas for which no notice of proposed change was given." (57:4) However, you say that no notice of bylaw amendments is required. It seems to me that in such a case, it would be possible to offer primary and secondary amendments to the proposed substitute bylaws (or, more precisely, to the main motion to adopt the substitute in lieu of the current bylaws), assuming such amendments are germane under the rules given in paragraphs 12:16ff.

Why does it matter whether this is a revision or not?

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