Suspend a rule?

[Josh Martin]

3 hours ago, cgwolf said:

As stated in your bylaws, the 90% vote required for this type of approval is no more a rule of order than where the bylaws call for a majority vote to elect members to the board or a committee, and at a meeting where there is an election, someone moves to suspend the rules to make it a plurality vote for this meeting --- it just isn't so. 

Both of these rules are rules of order and may be suspended.

3 hours ago, cgwolf said:

There is additional reasoning as to why the two-thirds vote to suspend the rules cannot be used. Since the 90% vote requirement protects a minority, how, then, could a majority of two-thirds be allowed to take away a right of 90%?  For example, it is conceivable that 85% of the members at the meeting could vote to suspend the rules and make the vote requirement for this piece of business you mention a majority vote.  Such a motion would take away a right of a minority --- a fundamental parliamentary law --- and thus not allowed to be suspended. 

 A 90% vote is required to suspend the rule in question.

3 hours ago, cgwolf said:

Most items in bylaws are not rules of order: membership requirements, frequency of meetings, setting quorum, voting procedures, the size of the board, and defining officer's duties and responsibilities, to name a few. Usually, one has to look carefully in a set of bylaws to find something that is a rule of order.

Voting procedures are generally in the nature of rules of order. Officer's duties and responsibilities in connection with the conduct of business during a meeting are in the nature of rules of order (for instance, the rules may be suspended to remove the President from the chair for part or all of a meeting), but such duties are otherwise not in the nature of rules of order. The rule requiring the presence of a quorum to conduct business is also in the nature of a rule of order, but it is a rule which protects the right of absentees, and therefore may not be suspended.

I concur that membership requirements, frequency of meetings, and the size of the board are not in the nature of rules of order.