Intent changed?

[grayduck]

At our last meeting there was a motion to give more flexibility and independence to a high profile club. A small group of people who hate that club committee's Chair put up motion to amend with tricky wording that totally killed the club. The membership was confused and it passed. The club was killed.

 

That was obviously not the purpose of the original motion. Did that amendment violate the rule that an amendment can't change intent? 

 

If so, 

 

A) now, after the fact, can there be any consequences for those who violated it that can be put up at the next meeting? I know POOs should be made immediately, but I was not at the meeting and those present found it confusing and had no chance for clarification.

 

B) What point of order can be called if they try to change the intent of a motion so significantly in the future? (did they?)

 

c) I'm on the road today without my book. Does anyone have any advice, or a page reference, that I can use against such an amendment of such significant change or is that up to the Chair to determine at the moment? 

 

Our chair, unfortunately, was the one who wrote the motion to kill that club. I have three that I know she'll try to completely change at the next meeting. She hates two.

[Hieu H. Huynh]

Does the club have bylaws?

[grayduck]

Yes. But nothing about intent. We have RONR as our parliamentary authority.

[Hieu H. Huynh]

Were the procedures followed in amending the bylaws? Was notice given of the amendment?

[grayduck]

There are no specific procedures in our bylaws for amendments.

They abused this gap and did some things that have never been done in our organization. I have made a motion to remedy this. But they'll claim now that it has been done once and should now be precedent.

[grayduck]

Our system is messy, I've written about this. I am trying to frame these questions in the context of a normal organization and normal, live meeting. I can apply those insights to our system in my presentation.

[Joshua Katz]

There is no rule that amendments cannot change intent.  They must be germane, but can certainly change the intent.  For instance, a motion to censure can be amended to strike censure and insert ratify.

So that leaves you with the question if the amendment was germane.  We'd need the language to be sure (but don't post it please), but from your description it appears germane.

It seems from some of the discussion here that this motion may have been to amend a bylaw - I can't really tell from your post.  If so, since your bylaws have no provision for amendment, that would require notice and a 2/3 vote.  The amendment would then need to be within scope of notice; it is likely that this amendment was not.

[grayduck]

What can be done if they handled that amendment in a meeting without a quorum?

[Joshua Katz]

Without a quorum, no original main motion can be entertained, let alone amended.  A point of order can be raised to any actions purporting to have been taken without a quorum.

[grayduck]

That was several months ago. How can I address that in our next meeting tomorrow? Is there anything I can do after-the-fact?

[Joshua Katz]

You need to prove convincingly that no quorum was present, which will invalidate any actions taken.

[Richard Brown]

Agreeing with Godelfan, RONR provides that in order to invalidate past action after the fact or retroactively on the basis that a quorum was not present when the motion was adopted, the evidence that a quorum was not present must be "clear and convincing". A point of order that a quorum was not present can be raised at any time.   See page 349 for more detail.

[grayduck]

When the amendments were handled, the minutes show an attendance of TWELVE members at the GM .... of 450+ total!

We have a quorum of 10% for motions.

The handling of the amendments without a quorum was all the idea of the person who will be chairing the motions section tomorrow.

[Richard Brown]

I think it might be a good to buy several copies of RONR in Brief for a few of your members.... and for your presiding officer.  Somebody also should have a copy of RONR itself.

RONR is about $19 in bookstores and about $14 from Amazon:  http://robertsrules.com/book.html

RONR in Brief is around $7.50 in bookstores and $5 from Amazon:  http://robertsrules.com/inbrief.html

[grayduck]

We all have the book, but they're knowingly abusing the rules and changing them as they go saying the changes are "just common sense". I actually have written proof of this intent of theirs - to change things to kill motions - and their scheming. Leaked messaging. Ugly.

My only recourse is to find the right thing to do and words to say to correct this situation in front of the whole membership tomorrow.

I'm still not sure how.

[Kim Goldsworthy]

14 hours ago, grayduck said:

Did that amendment violate the rule that an amendment can't change intent? 

"Intent"? -- No. An amendment can be made to twist the original intent 180 degrees.

See page 125 for an example.

Quote

A motion to ratify

can be amended by substituting

a motion of censure,

and vice versa,

when the action involved has been taken by an officer or other representative of the assembly.

See? Page 125 is talking about "ratification" (making legitimate an illegitimate action).

The motion "to make official the action X" can be turned topsy-turvy (via amendment) into a disciplinary action against the members who participated in the action X.

That is, the "intent" can indeed be "violated".

[grayduck]

Thanks. What can I do about things having been done without a quorum? How do I call that out?

[Josh Martin]

1 hour ago, grayduck said:

Thanks. What can I do about things having been done without a quorum? How do I call that out?

At the next regular meeting with a quorum present, raise a Point of Order that the action was taken in the absence of a quorum, and is therefore null and void. The chair will rule on your point. Based on what you have said, I imagine the chair will rule your point not well taken. The next step is to Appeal from the ruling of the chair, which must be seconded by another member. This places the decision in the hands of the assembly. A majority vote will be required to overturn the chair's ruling.

[grayduck]

The Chair ignored me. First, she ruled my current motion invalid when it was not. Then, when I called for an appeal of her decision, another member pulled out some line from the book that you cannot appeal the decision of the chair if there is no argument against her ruling, so she ignored my appeal (it was orchestrated). Then she refused to hear my point of order for the January meeting that had no quorum, my call for her censure, call for her removal, etc.

It was a total sham and a very obviously raucous meeting. Boos all around.

What now?

[Chris Harrison]

See RONR pp. 650-654.

[Rev Ed]

Of course, part of the job of the Chairman would be to make sure everyone understands what is occurring.  If the amendment would completely change the original intent of the motion, then the Chairman should have recommended that the mover wait until the original motion is dealt with in order to create a new main motion.

[Joshua Katz]

It is true that an appeal is out of order if there is no reasonable argument on the other side.  It should be very rare to rule appeals out of order on that basis, though.

[Dan Honemann]

16 hours ago, Rev Ed said:

Of course, part of the job of the Chairman would be to make sure everyone understands what is occurring.  If the amendment would completely change the original intent of the motion, then the Chairman should have recommended that the mover wait until the original motion is dealt with in order to create a new main motion.

This thread, unfortunately, has been wandering all over the place, and now this response appears to be an attempt to address once again the original question(s) asked.

If so, I'll say that I agree with the first sentence, and strongly disagree with the second.

 

 

[Sean Hunt]

It sounds like your organization (if I hazard a guess, a student one?) has much deeper problems than simple procedure. It might be time to rally the pitchforks.

[Rev Ed]

17 hours ago, Daniel H. Honemann said:

If so, I'll say that I agree with the first sentence, and strongly disagree with the second.

 

Daniel, so what you are saying is that if the amendment may be cause for confusion that the Chairman should basically keep his/her mouth shut?  To me, a good Chairman would suggest that the issue be dealt with in a different way - yes, it is up to the group to decide, but still this seems to make sense too.