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Priority of Business


Tim Wynn

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What you really want is the Gerber definition. He knows more about it than anyone else on the planet. :)

"Priority of business," now that RONR 11 has been published, means I had to finish slaving over this week's paper before being able to respond. :mellow:

Dan's loose definition seems good to me. The question in http://www.robertsru...ist.html#2006_4 is also one that involves the priority of business, IMO.

I found an unpublished draft of an article I wrote, in which I made the following points, among other things:

Questions relating to whether or not the assembly presently is conforming to—or to whether or not the assembly presently will conform to—its proper order of business and its established orders of the day (including any recesses or adjournments that have been scheduled) are, by definition, questions relating to the priority of business.

Additionally, questions of privilege may be viewed as having a place within the priority of business, with a question of the privileges of the assembly having higher priority than a question of personal privilege. Under this scheme, any question of privilege has higher priority than any main question that is not a question of privilege—including the special order for a meeting—but a prescheduled [N.B.: notice the 10th-edition-era nomenclature] recess or adjournment has yet higher priority than any of these.

Also, a main motion that has been disposed of by a vote that is subject to reconsideration—and thus a motion to Reconsider such a vote—may be viewed as having a place in the priority of business. And business which lies on the table—and thus a motion to Take from the Table applied to such business—may also be viewed as having a place in the priority of business.

The rule [in SDC 1 on page 220 of the 11th edition] that “Except when a special order must be taken up, this call also yields to a motion to Reconsider or to the calling up of a motion to Reconsider that has been made previously” is also tangentially related to the priority of business. In other words, the precedence of the motion to Call for the Orders of the Day is logically connected to the priority of the business (the “orders of the day”) that would be taken up pursuant to the call.

P.S.: Judging by the rest of this intricately detailed article, it may indeed be that the Shmuel Gerber of 2007 who wrote it knew more about this than anyone else on the planet, but I make no claim that the Shmuel Gerber of 2012 does. :)

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