Gaveling Through

[Guest Minority Leader]

I am the opposition leader in a student government organization. The majority (which the chair belongs to) holds a 16-15 majority. Many of the measures which this group seeks to ram through are highly controversial and no one on my side will support them unamended. Thus, we try to offer amendments, but the chair has taken up the habit of getting his members in lockstep and refusing to recognize members for the purposes of raising amendments. The chair has even gone so far as to call a vote before debate has even occured. I am told this is called 'gaveling through a measure.' Is there any way around this when I do not have a majority????

[Chris Harrison]

I am the opposition leader in a student government organization. The majority (which the chair belongs to) holds a 16-15 majority. Many of the measures which this group seeks to ram through are highly controversial and no one on my side will support them unamended. Thus, we try to offer amendments, but the chair has taken up the habit of getting his members in lockstep and refusing to recognize members for the purposes of raising amendments. The chair has even gone so far as to call a vote before debate has even occured. I am told this is called 'gaveling through a measure.' Is there any way around this when I do not have a majority????

Not really. You can raise a Point of Order when this happens but if you don't have the votes to overrule the Chair upon Appeal you pretty much are out of luck parliamentary procedure-wise. However, a few ideas come to mind.

1) Talk to the members who you think may be a little less in "lockstep" with the Chair and try to convince them that for the sake of fairness that the majority should not violate the rules just because they are the majority and have the votes to do what they want. Also, you might want to (diplomatically) point out that what is good for the goose is also good for the gander. In that I mean that there will be a point where they will no longer be in the majority and do they really want to have you all pull the same stunts they are pulling now just because you can?

2) If you and the other members of the minority have any influence on who becomes members of the student government you might want to advocate for people who are willing to follow the rules becoming members (which comes back to my goose and gander point above).

3) If there are any superior bodies (or applicable laws or rules) that the student government must answer to you might want to bring your case to them and see if there is anything they can do about it.

[hmtcastle]

I am the opposition leader in a student government organization.

You might want to re-think the propriety of a "two-party" system in a student government organization. After all, it doesn't work very well in a "real" government.