Shmuel Gerber

Why will the current office held by these candidates be vacant instead of being filled by the same election that elects the president? Does that term of office not coincide with the term of office for president? And in any event, unless the bylaws provide that no person may hold two offices simultaneously, election to another office would not create a vacancy in the existing office unless the person submits a resignation (from the first office) to the appropriate body and the resignation is accepted.

Or maybe it was the used dictionary salesman.

The reason to want it dead before it comes off the table is to prevent *further* debate on the matter. That's not necessarily the same thing as killing the motion without debate.

If the assembly members have voted to lay the motion on the table, it's not much of a stretch to suppose they might want it dead. And who said there was no debate on it already?

At that point, the motion to Suspend the Rules could validly be adopted. I can't say it would be "the best" motion, but see http://www.robertsrules.com/interp_list.html#2006_20 for a somewhat similar scenario and possible wording.

The motion to Suspend the Rules would still not be in order at that point, as the chair first has to state the question on the motion to Take from the Table.

A motion to Suspend the Rules is out of order when another has the floor.

Obviously you're joking, but the wording is perfectly logical. The following colloquy would be absurd: A: Are there any Honemanns here? B: No, it's just the one Dan.

I could start a new subforum called "Gary's Rules of Chaos," but I won't.

Maybe the RONR authorship team felt that having a rule providing for the omission of a proper tellers' report is such a dumb idea that it would be pointless to mention the type of rule needed to accomplish it.

I don't think the specific rights of the members has anything to do with it. The question is whether the bylaws have been complied with. A requirement of a "ballot vote" has a very specific meaning; it doesn't just mean that ballots were employed in the vote somehow or another.

Not that the numbers make any difference for this topic, but how big are their memberships? The forum has almost 4,500 registered (which is not to say active) members.

The problem with that is it would render inaccurate the statement in the (say) August minutes that says "The minutes of the last meeting were read and approved," as there would no longer be any record of what was actually then approved. So you'd be correcting the July minutes as to their own content, but "incorrecting" them as to the next meeting's content.

First, please don't use the word "crap" on the forum. Second, it sounds like the president may just have to remove all the members of this committee and start over with a less roguish group of appointees.

I thought that my first sentence addressed your question, since you already know that the chair has the right and indeed the duty to protect the assembly from dilatory, frivolous, or absurd motions, including dilatory, frivolous, or absurd points of order and appeals. RONR is entirely clear and "readily available" on that point. I don't think it takes an expert to realize that a meeting can't be run by a chair who has no power to make rulings and that the (theoretical) member in question is offering a silly rationale for the point of order, and the chair can, politely, explain why.

Seems to me as though both the point of order and the appeal are indeed dilatory or, at the very least, frivolous as well as absurd. If a member believes that the chair's initial ruling is in error, he or she should appeal from the decision of the chair, not make the silly assertion that a rule in the bylaws specifying a voting requirement prevents the chair from ruling a motion out of order.

I'm not sure what a "motion to approve an ordinance" is, or why it matters whether there was a "denial action" involved if that motion fails to get the necessary votes. Certainly the rejection of the motion is some sort of denial of its approval, but we don't have enough information to know whether that matters. But regardless, I agree that there is nothing to rescind, and that a member may simply reintroduce the motion at a future meeting, unless the assembly's rules provide otherwise.

Whether non-delegates have any rights to notice of motions is irrelevant to the definition of the call of a meeting. Merely giving notice to members without doing so in the call of the meeting (or orally at the previous meeting held within a quarterly time interval) does not meet the requirements for previous notice as stated in RONR.

Nancy/Pennlawyer: Please note, the name box is for entering your name, not the name of the person you're replying to.

So it looks to me like you basically agree with J.J.'s response but did not necessarily want to endorse the details of how he stated it.

Well, for one thing, adopting a motion to fix the time for an adjourned meeting -- which can be made at any time during the meeting and not just at the time scheduled for adjournment of the present meeting -- would not have the effect of allowing members to make the privileged motion to Adjourn before that time. Therefore, in most cases, a motion to do away with the scheduled adjournment time would be very different from a motion to fix the time for an adjourned meeting. Furthermore, I'm not so sure that the motion you give in the example is not frivolous. Although it's certainly possible for an assembly to hold two meetings in one day, it is obvious in this case that the intention is to continue the same meeting, not to hold another one. And in a committee, reasonable efforts would need to be made to inform absent members of an adjourned meeting held the same day (or any other day). (RONR, 11th ed., p. 502)

First, I don't think the chair should have ruled out of order of the motion to continue the meeting until there is no further business (or until a motion to adjourn is adopted), but should have noted that it would require a two-thirds vote. Second, that's a neat trick you've come up with to continue meeting past the scheduled adjournment time, by a majority vote. But if the problem is the adopted motion that fixed the time for adjournment, why do you think the decision couldn't be reversed by a majority vote upon reconsidering that motion (if the schedule was not part of an adopted agenda for the meeting)?

I'll have to check the Deluxe Edition, because the copy of RONR that I just looked at says no such thing. There is no difference in this regard between election votes and non-election votes.

You can't, if there's nothing to recount. Why is that a problem? Maybe you're asking what to do if the tellers are unsure of or lose track of the count before the result is announced. I think what happens in practice is that the result is not announced, and the chair just asks for a do-over as if the first vote never occurred. If there was no problem during the actual count but the members simply do not have sufficient confidence in the result, then I would say that either the rules can be suspended for the purpose of taking another counted rising vote, or a motion could be made to take a ballot vote or a roll-call vote, but this must be done within the time limits for retaking or contesting the result of the vote.

Welcome back, SaintCad.