1Angela

For the record, the Chair has still not filed anything with the Judicial Committee. JJ filed multiple appeals though.

Please forgive any sarcastic overtones. It went like this: Chair: States that despite 2 different committees and a convention all declaring that he is wrong on the way he is interpreting these bylaws, everybody else in the party is wrong and he intends to file an appeal with the JC at some point. In the meantime, he is appointing Person A, whom he declares the rightful seatholder to Seat A and not allowing anybody to sit in Seat B. A member addresses the chair as follows: MEMBER A: I appeal from the decision of the chair. (Second.) CHAIR: The appeal is not well taken. <mutes member> MEMBER B: I also appeal from the decision of the chair. <Second> CHAIR: The appeal is not well taken. <mutes member> As chaos begins, he again lectures us that the bylaws are being interpreted incorrectly despite the plain language that says otherwise, reiterates his positions and calls for a vote affirming his decision on Seat B. When a question arises as to why there will be no vote on Seat A, he states it is because that there is a person seated in that chair and then mutes everybody except for the secretary, who takes the roll call vote.

Yes, several. They were all declared to be not well taken and dismissed. It gets a little more complicated. There are two districts: District 8 and District 10. For District 8, the Chair went further and announced that he had seated the runner-up to the election. She voted on all matters on this day. (At the next meeting, it was announced that it had been subsequently determined that she did not actually have the votes to win second-place, and that he had removed her from the seat.) That seat remains empty, but no vote was taken to affirm that original decision. He did ask the board to vote on his decision regarding District 10, but it was technically not phrased in the manner of a proper motion. The vote narrowly passed 7 yes, 5 no with the chair voting. If the representatives who had been seated by the convention votes had been allowed to vote in this meeting, the vote would have ended exactly opposite. In summary, no vote was taken on the District 08 seat. A vote was taken on the District 10 seat, but the outcome was questionable.

A board member wrote an appeal to the Judicial Committee almost immediately, but they have thus far not issued any opinion, so the elected reps are not allowed to vote or speak.

It is me who has the disagreement based on the customized rules of the bylaws. And while I get my arguments debunked on a regular basis here in these forums, I still maintain my position here, that the chair has no such authority but we're again simply powerless to stop him, is the correct interpretation.

I don't think anybody would have an issue with muting someone who is generating background noise. Watching this roll out, the problem arises when the speakers cannot unmute themselves.

I think that this is again the answer to a different question, but it begs more. Why does 47:7 and 23:3 override 46:50, which says he can't? And I will point out that the Chair did not raise a point of order as per 23:3. He announced that he would not be recognizing those elected members as "a ruling of the chair," that was entirely proper per RONR, then refused to answer the multiple points of parliamentary inquiry that were raised.

I only brought it up, and brought it here, because you said it was correct and proper. I am not concerned about the JC opinion, in no small part because none of them have any parliamentary experience. I can live with them innocently coming to the wrong conclusion. Heck, I do it all the time, which is why I lurk in these forums. I was just curious as to how you personally arrived at your opinion. 47:7. seems to deal with the duties of a presiding officer. Can you please quote the relevant paragraph and elaborate as to where the chair has the power to refuse to recognize an elected member of the board?

Where does the chair get the right to make such a finding?

Moving a goalpost. I specifically said I was not debating the authority of the Judicial Committee. I am sorry if I am confused, but as you and the chair have repeatedly and angrily told me that this is all 100% proper according to the bylaws and RONR, I was simply asking you to clarify that statement. 1. The delegates were seated at the end of the convention as per our bylaws. 2. No ruling from the JC has been issued. 3. Our bylaws apparently allow two ways to remove members from their chairs. One is a 2/3rds vote, and the other is by a JC ruling. So where does the chair get the authority to refuse to allow those elected officials to participate?

But per our bylaws, they were already seated because the point of order and the appeal to the assembly (the convention body) resulted in an overwhelming vote in agreement with the plain language of the bylaw in question, thus settling the challenge when it arose, or so we thought. The way I see it, using your language above, ,because they had already been seated, where does the chair get the authority to refuse to allow them to speak or vote before any JC decision has been reached? Our bylaws only make a case for a 2/3rds vote of the board to remove a member of the board, so you can see where I am confused.

At the time of the original post, and also at the moment I am writing this, there has been no J C ruling on the matter. (The Chair said he intended to appeal, but refused to seat the reps before any appeal was even filed.) My question to you still stands: Where, in your opinion, does RONR or the bylaws give the chair the authority to treat the seats as vacant prior to the decision?

In another venue, JJ told me that he would like to discuss this post but was unable to locate it in the forum. "Bumping" is slang which means creating activity in a thread specifically to move it to the top of the forum again.

Doesn't RONR already provide guidance for a meeting to deal with abusive members though?

Bumping this per JJ's request.

I am admittedly out of my depth here. But the Secretary has always been responsible for producing the minutes. The bylaws don't specifically mention the minutes, but nobody has ever argued that he is not responsible for producing them.

Would it make a difference to know that no point of order was raised at the time, and the original motion was amended on the floor from 1 day (which his usual turn-around time) to the 3 day time frame that the secretary agreed to?

Michigan Libertarians again. We had a convention on Mar 09. The chair of the party did not chair the convention, preferring to make and argue motions from the floor. One of the motions was to challenge an entire affiliate's delegation, and the other was to keep 4 members from being seated as delegates after their suspensions were rescinded. Both the motion and the challenge failed, and in that process the body voted to interpret a bylaw in a manner that he strongly disagrees with. After the 4 members were seated as delegates, the credentials report was updated to reflect their status as delegates. The delegation then broke off into local affiliate caucuses and elected their Executive Committee representatives. No objections or points of order were raised at that time. 2 of the members elected to the EC seats were subjects of the failed attempts to prevent them from being seated. Our bylaws and RONR indicate that they became board members at the close of the convention. At the next board meeting, 03/10, the "chair" announced he was going to file an appeal with the Judicial Committee and overturn the decision of the delegates at convention and in the meantime, he was not going to seat those representatives. As they were already seated, he clearly has no such authority to do any such thing, but he refused to allow them to participate in the meeting. Last night, at the 04/14 board meeting, he again refused to allow those delegates to speak or vote, again saying that he intended to file an appeal with the Judicial Committee. The voting is especially important, because their votes would have changed several outcomes. At least 2 board members tried to explain the bylaws arguments, but he refused to entertain it. He did allow the board to vote to uphold his decision, which amounts to just another violation of the bylaws. This isn't an argument about the limits of the judicial committee power. My questions are: 1. Is there anything a minority can actually do to restrain a majority who refuses to adhere to their own rules? 2. As the votes of those members would have changed the outcome on some significant actions, what happens to those actions?

The motion failed, so it ended up being a non-issue. I was just curious, because it seemed wrong to discuss multiple motions simultaneously, but now I know better. Thank you!

At a contentious meeting last night, there was a motion and a subsidiary motion on the floor. One of the members was properly recognized and moved to "Call all the questions," to attempt shut down discussion of both motions. Is that in order?

So, if an election was out of order, the fairest way to remedy it would be to have another election?

Thank you Mr. Martin! Our bylaws are silent on the subject, but state law is not. I am trying to add bylaws on those topics that will hopefully keep future boards from innocently doing logical things instead of legal things.

Thank you both for taking the time to reply and for the feedback!

We have annual summer conventions. The officers are elected at our summer conventions that take place in odd numbered years. Per our bylaws, our summer convention can take place anywhere from April to July. So it is probable that the term might be slightly longer or shorter than 2 years. We want the officers to serve approximate 2 year terms. We also want the EC to have the power to accept resignations and appoint replacements. Those are processes are in different paragraphs, or at least they will be, but that's why the "full power" statement is here. Finally we want the officers we elect at convention to take office at the close of the convention, not when their successors are elected. We had a treasurer resign, and he held office until his successor was elected, so it seems like that needs to be in there somewhere too. Any suggestions appreciated. Thank you in advance.

The members have legitimate reasons to believe the Judicial Committee is not unbiased, nor are they convinced they are qualified to interpret parliamentary law, nor are they convinced the JC had the actual authority to overturn the vote of the body. The concept of a Judicial Committee is foreign to RONR, and as-such is probably off-topic. The JC powers in the bylaws are defined only as, "The Judicial Committee shall decide cases involving alleged violations of these bylaws or resolutions." There is no case to be had until an alleged violation actually occurs. The members feel the best way to interpret these ambiguities is, as per RONR, to allow the body to interpret them by a simple majority vote until the bylaws can be revised. That was the genesis of the petition.