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Lynne

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I'm currently revising the Bylaws for a political central committee whose membership of voting members is limited to 21 if all elected seats are filled.  Only 17 seats are currently filled.  Though I don't want to change the quorum needed for voting to take an action or to make a decision about something during a meeting, is it wise to change the Bylaws to allow routine business (e.g. reports) to be conducted without a quorum since they will appear in the minutes?

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I would say no. Presumably, it is undesirable to change the quorum because there is a need to protect the rights of those who are unable to attend. The purpose of having reports is to inform people about the things they may need to take action on. If seven people show up and hear the reports, then most of the people won't know what is going on when a quorum is present, so they will either need to hear the reports again or they won't know what they need to take action on. On the other hand, if you have some reports that are pointless and provide no useful information, perhaps you should eliminate those reports.

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The only reason for lowering quorum requirements is if there is difficulty, on a regular basis, of achieving a quorum.  For an assembly, it is normal to specify a quorum of 10% or so of the total membership.  For a board or "political central committee", the usual quorum is a majority of the members.

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The current Bylaws say, "One-half of This Committee shall constitute a quorum for the transaction of business."  Since not all members can vote, I've revised this the Bylaw:  "Fifty percent (50%) of This Committee's voting members shall constitute a quorum for the transaction of business."

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Good, now you can complete the job by eliminating that entire sentence, since a majority is already the default rule in RONR.

 

Not a good idea to have the quorum explicitly stated in the bylaws, even if's the RONR default rule?  (I call to your attention p. 21, lines 12 - 13, in RONR, since I'm watching a The Good Wife semi-marathon on TV and I am so tempted to , not practice law without a licence, because that's not allowed on the world's premier parliamentary Internet forum (RONR MB) and maybe on other parts of the Internet too but I wouldn't know because I never go anywhere else, but get a little jazzed about it, introducing evidence before discovery without a licence; kinda like it's against the law to impersonate a police officer (so I'm told; I'm not practicing law without a licence) but little kids play cops & robbers and never get arrested for it.

 

(Sometimes there's no justice.  But sometimes there's the last four words on p. 299.)

 

[Edited to fix italics.]

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Not a good idea to have the quorum explicitly stated in the bylaws, even if's the RONR default rule? 

My personal view is that ujnless there is a very good reason to do so, RONR defalut rules should not be included in the bylaws. While it probably does no harm in most cases, there can be problems when the drafters think they are re-stating the RONR rule, but they get the wording a bit different. Then the question arises whether they really intended to include the defalut rule, or meant something else. 

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ANd not just yours (not to slight it either), at least in general; but doesn't p. 21 say we should?

 

P. 21 could be read that way, but I suspect Weldon's point is that trying to duplicate the rule(s) in RONR can often lead to needless confusion and ambiguity.  If a majority of the entire membership is what the society deems appropriate for its quorum, why not let RONR carry the load?  Otherwise, it often ends up as "50%" or "50% + 1" or some other just slightly erroneous interpretation of "majority" as we've so often read here on the internet's premier parliamentary forum.

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P. 21 could be read that way, but I suspect Weldon's point is that trying to duplicate the rule(s) in RONR can often lead to needless confusion and ambiguity.  If a majority of the entire membership is what the society deems appropriate for its quorum, why not let RONR carry the load?  Otherwise, it often ends up as "50%" or "50% + 1" or some other just slightly erroneous interpretation of "majority" as we've so often read here on the internet's premier parliamentary forum.

Yes, that was my point. And the p. 21 citation, needs to be read in context. The admonition that the quorum should be stated in the bylaws (ll. 12-13) follows after the statement, "In both houses of Congress, the quorum is a majority of the members, by the United States Constitution. Such a quorum is appropriate in legislative bodies but too large in most voluntary societies" (ll. 8-12). For assemblies where a majority of the membership is an appropriate quorum, there is no need to include it in the bylaws.

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