Wright Stuff

Understood and agreed, but what if it doesn't contain a motion?

The special rule I understand. I don't understand how limiting debate limits a committee report, which I never knew was treated the same as a debate. I know I'm splitting hairs, but there are a lot of hairs in RONR worth splitting.

I'm not doubting your answer, but is there a RONR cite or would this be a special rule?

33:9 says, in part, "If the speaker consents to the interruption, the time consumed will be taken out of his allowed time." Since you were making a report, were you under a time limit? I thought the time limit applied to debate.

Since I don’t know about HC Reynolds, I don’t know to which organizations he belongs.

On that, we agree, but when leadership accepts the opinion of the attorney, it becomes strong hearsay. Some people I know (not me) are pondering legal action to force the organization to follow the bylaws and RONR, but they don't know if there is a viable cause of action. I would not be a part of that lawsuit.

It's worse than that. The Vice-Chair announced at the meeting that the Chair resigned, and that, pursuant to the bylaws, she was now the Chair. A member of the body raised a point or order that the Chair's resignation must be accepted. She responded that it was not necessary, and that the state attorney had told her that it was not necessary. While the state attorney has made a lot of errors in interpretations, no one appealed the ruling of the putative Chair, so she's the new Chair. Therefore, while the procedure may not be proper, it's clearly effective (unless it's a continuing breach). I wish people would follow the rules.

Me, too.

The county organizations supposedly have the right to make their own interpretations, but the state has an appeals process since most of the county officers are not qualified to handle interpretations of the bylaws or of RONR. Plus, our bylaws are so terribly written (as you have seen), it's hard to criticize them. I tend to get a little aggressive toward them when they attempt to weaponize the rules or when they blatantly ignore them. It's a sad state of affairs, really.

Please consider sharing. Our needs are probably similar.

Thanks, Josh. If I may, and to help explain why I write some of the things I do, we're dealing with an organization that is negligent in recognizing and implementing RONR, which is supposed to be binding. Like too many organizations, they take the path of least resistance, and the rules be damned (unless it is THEIR rule being violated.) There's always more to the story, and it's not helpful to air all of the dirty laundry here. With regard to your backup or failsafe characterization, once the organization takes that path, they will repeat it until they are called on it. I've done my best to try to dig deeper into the nuances of RONR, but some people here don't like being challenged. To me, this forum is the gold standard for interpretations, but even then, the authors and experts don't always agree. That's totally understandable. Sometimes a dead horse needs to be kicked. Other times, it's not worth the energy.

So we agree that belts and suspenders are not a good idea. The creation of an ambiguity from using them seems inevitable. Has anyone seen RONR cites used in bylaws? Maybe that could be an effective way to force people to realize that RONR, if adopted as the parliamentary authority, is supposed to be binding.

He's the LONG time authority on RONR for the organization. If there is an appeal of a decision by the county to the state, the state will merely ask him what the correct answer, and they will go with it, even if he is wrong. He's a good guy and he means well, but I'm convinced he's wrong about a few things. (Some of the posters here have disagreed with some of his decisions.) The point is, his opinion counts, and mine doesn't. We've discussed a number of RONR topics over the years, but I have never persuaded him on one of his interpretations.

I like that idea and will take it under consideration. I'm not sure I'm the right person to write them. It's clear to me that these people will not take the time to read even RONRIB.

In a bylaws rewrite for an organization that has adopted RONR as its parliamentary authority, would you recommend in favor of or against repeating rules in RONR in the bylaws? In our very large political organization, no one (including me) has a complete grasp of RONR. There are probably only two or three other people who own RONR or RONRIB. Generally, it seems to me that it's better NOT to include such rules in the bylaws since every ten years some of the rules in RONR change. If they're repeated in the bylaws, the bylaws may have to be updated (a very major effort for our group.) One simple example of such a provision is that "days" refers to calendar days, nor work days. Some of the other members in our committee are saying that the provisions need to be included because no one understands or even tries to understand RONR. I was always taught to avoid duplication whenever possible because it is a ready opportunity to create an ambiguity. What is your recommendation?