paulycowgirl Posted March 11, 2015 at 06:45 PM Report Share Posted March 11, 2015 at 06:45 PM Our organization has a set of State By-laws which govern individual county units. The By-laws state that the units can receive additional voting delegates based on their membership numbers IF their dues are paid by a specific date. If their dues are delinquent, they lose the delegates for one year. Question: Would it ever be okay to propose a suspension or deviation from that rule in order to allow units' delegates to remain eligible to vote? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard Brown Posted March 11, 2015 at 06:58 PM Report Share Posted March 11, 2015 at 06:58 PM Our organization has a set of State By-laws which govern individual county units. The By-laws state that the units can receive additional voting delegates based on their membership numbers IF their dues are paid by a specific date. If their dues are delinquent, they lose the delegates for one year. Question: Would it ever be okay to propose a suspension or deviation from that rule in order to allow units' delegates to remain eligible to vote?No. Provisions such as that in the bylaws cannot be suspended. From page 263 of RONR: "RULES THAT CANNOT BE SUSPENDED. Rules contained in the bylaws (or constitution) cannot be suspended—no matter how large the vote in favor of doing so or how inconvenient the rule in question may be—unless the particular rule specifically provides for its own suspension, or unless the rule properly is in the nature of a rule of order as described on page 17, lines 22–25." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DanielEHayes Posted March 12, 2015 at 02:24 AM Report Share Posted March 12, 2015 at 02:24 AM Our organization has a set of State By-laws which govern individual county units. The By-laws state that the units can receive additional voting delegates based on their membership numbers IF their dues are paid by a specific date. If their dues are delinquent, they lose the delegates for one year. Question: Would it ever be okay to propose a suspension or deviation from that rule in order to allow units' delegates to remain eligible to vote?It would be ok to propose a deviation in the form of a bylaws amendment and do away with the rule OR include in there a provision for the rule to be suspended but that won't help you in the short term for picking up those extra delegates for this current round of voting, though if they would be voting more frequently than annually, it may help with subsequent votes during the year. Personally, I don't know if that's the most wise move. Part of the reason for those sorts of provisions seems to me to be to help make sure that people are helping to fund the organization and to make sure they have some "investment" in the organization. If people can be allowed to vote without having paid dues, more people might stop paying dues in a timely fashion. Why buy the cow if you can gladly pay Tuesday for the Milk today? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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