Tabled Motion and Meeting Minutes

[Guest Scott Moser]

I was absent from our last two meetings. When I read the reports I saw that in the November meeting the Council tabled a motion to create education programs. The next month, I read that the Council simply passed the educational programs, there was no mention that the motion was taken off the table. Can I before the minutes are approved in January, point out that the educational program was passed incorrectly and that the motion was first tabled and that it needed to be taken off the table, then voted upon. Since it was not voted upon correctly, the actions of the Council in December, are null and void. What are you opinions?

 

Thank You

[Hieu H. Huynh]

See FAQ #12 and #13 regarding the likely misuse of the motion to Lay on the Table. In any case, a defeated motion or one that was postponed indefinitely may be renewed at the next meeting.

[Sean Hunt]

There is no major issue with this. It's quite likely that the Council doesn't use "to table" to mean the same thing that it does in RONR.

 

Even if they did, what they did would be out of order, but not in a way that really matters. The appropriate motion would have been to Take from the Table, yes, but once the assembly had started to consider the motion (or a similar motion) at the next meeting, it is too late to sustain a point of order. There is no continuing breach of the rules, and furthermore, it could be argued that the motion was lifted from the table by unanimous consent.

 

In any case, I would not entertain any objections to the validity of the resulting action, even if the procedure was less than ideal.

[Josh Martin]

I was absent from our last two meetings. When I read the reports I saw that in the November meeting the Council tabled a motion to create education programs. The next month, I read that the Council simply passed the educational programs, there was no mention that the motion was taken off the table. Can I before the minutes are approved in January, point out that the educational program was passed incorrectly and that the motion was first tabled and that it needed to be taken off the table, then voted upon. Since it was not voted upon correctly, the actions of the Council in December, are null and void. What are you opinions?

Thank You

It is quite likely that Lay on the Table was out of order in the first place. Since it was adopted, a motion to Take from the Table is required, but in both cases, a Point of Order would have had to be raised at the time. The actions of the council are valid.