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Vote required to suspend a custom?


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A board has no rules (bylaws or otherwise) concerning how the agenda is established for each quarterly meeting.  RONR is their parliamentary authority. The custom and practice has been for board members to send their agenda items to the Secretary at least ten days prior to the meeting; the secretary then sends the agenda out to the board.  There is no vote at the meeting to adopt the agenda.  The custom has simply been to follow the mailed agenda and that an item of new business not submitted by the ten-day deadline requires a 2/3 vote to be added to the agenda during the meeting.   

 

RONR on page 19 notes that you follow your customs and practices unless a majority votes to do otherwise. Elsewhere, p 261, RONR notes that although it usually takes a 2/3 vote to suspend a rule, no rule protecting a minority of a particular size can be suspended in the face of a negative vote as large as the protected minority.  So the question is -- does suspending the custom of requiring a 2/3 vote to take up a new item of business require only a majority vote because it is only a custom and not a rule -- or is the custom treated like a rule for this purpose and you need a 2/3 vote in order to deviate?

 

[i have already recommended that they adopt a special rule establishing how the agenda is set -- so there is no need to expand this into a discussion of best practices.  The only question for now is what vote is required to suspend the custom at their upcoming meeting.]

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RONR on page 19 notes that you follow your customs and practices unless a majority votes to do otherwise. Elsewhere, p 261, RONR notes that although it usually takes a 2/3 vote to suspend a rule, no rule protecting a minority of a particular size can be suspended in the face of a negative vote as large as the protected minority.  So the question is -- does suspending the custom of requiring a 2/3 vote to take up a new item of business require only a majority vote because it is only a custom and not a rule -- or is the custom treated like a rule for this purpose and you need a 2/3 vote in order to deviate?

 

Neither. Since the custom conflicts with RONR, it falls to the ground when a single member raises a Point of Order. A majority vote is sufficient to amend the agenda when it is pending, and it also requires a majority vote to adopt the agenda. If the agenda is not adopted, it is binding only to the extent that it is consistent with the standard order of business or a special order of business adopted by the assembly.

 

A 2/3 vote is required to amend the agenda after it has been adopted. Additionally, after all other business on the agenda has been completed, any member is free to make a motion of new business, even though it is not on the agenda. The purpose of an agenda is to ensure that the most important business is completed first, not to deprive members of the right to make motions.

 

[i have already recommended that they adopt a special rule establishing how the agenda is set -- so there is no need to expand this into a discussion of best practices.  The only question for now is what vote is required to suspend the custom at their upcoming meeting.]

 

I think you may need to have that discussion with them again. If it is indeed their desire to require that a motion must be on the agenda to be considered, and that a motion must be submitted ten days in advance of the meeting to be included on the agenda, and that the agenda prepared in advance shall automatically be the agenda for the meeting, without a need for the assembly to adopt it, any one of those things (let alone all of them) will require a special rule of order.

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Also, the motion to Suspend the Rules (and what is said on p. 261) does not apply to a custom (there is no "suspending a custom"). Once the assembly decides to do something other than the custom, the custom is no longer followed. The motion to Suspend the Rules applies to written rules and the suspension of those rules only lasts at the meeting in which the motion to Suspend the Rules was adopted.

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