Recommendations from committee members

[Guest rlc]

At a recent meeting a committee member presented a recommendation for the group to discuss. The president asked for a motion to be made to accept the recommendation. No one would make the motion, so she then said the recommendation comes as a motion and only needed a second in order to be discussed and voted on. The only person who would second the motion was the person on the committee who originally presented the recommendation. We did not feel the same person should make and second a motion in the first place but since none of us were sure, the president said it could be done. A discussion followed after which the motion was passed with a 3-2 vote. Was any of this even done correctly?

[Chris Harrison]

Assuming that the reporting member (from the Committee) made the motion, is a member of the assembly, and the Committee has more than one member a second isn't required (RONR p. 507 ll. 4-19). It is improper for the member who made the motion to also second it since the purpose of a second is to show that more than one member wants to see the motion considered (though it is unclear whether the reporting member actually made the motion to adopt the recommendation). However, none of the missteps would invalidate the results of the vote (RONR pp. 250-251)..