Ability to withdraw proposed recommendations

[Guest Walter]

Scenario: At a recent biannual convention, because of time constraints (this was the last plenary session before closing), a motion to postpone the consideration of the remaining recommendations and refer them to committee so that they can be presented at the next biannual convention.  These recommendations include proposed constitution/bylaw amendments, policy/procedure manual changes, etc.  In preparing for their report, an inquiry was posed as to whether the submitter of the recommendation can withdraw their proposal.  Is this allowed or prohibited?

[Atul Kapur]

If it has been referred to a committee, I would say that the submitter cannot withdraw the proposal. The convention took "ownership" of the proposal by referring it to the committee. The submitter could have tried to amend the motion to refer to exclude the submitter's proposal.

[Guest Walter]

I may need to add some clarification; the issue was whether or not the individuals who submitted the various recommendations could withdraw them.  I should have closed the first sentence by stating that the motion passed to postpone the consideration of the remaining recommendations and refer them to committee. 

[Guest Who's Coming to Dinner]

What do you mean by "recommendations"? Was this a report of some kind? Motions from the floor? Orders of the day?

[Gary Novosielski]

1 hour ago, Guest Walter said:

I may need to add some clarification; the issue was whether or not the individuals who submitted the various recommendations could withdraw them.  I should have closed the first sentence by stating that the motion passed to postpone the consideration of the remaining recommendations and refer them to committee. 

Well, technically, a motion to postpone and a motion to refer are mutually exclusive.  Once postponed, the matter is no longer pending and so cannot then be referred.

A logical presumption is that what effectively happened was that the question(s) were referred to a committee with instructions to report in six months.

At this point, the question on approving any of these recommendations is in the hands of the committee, so it does not seem to me that the original movers can withdraw them.

[Atul Kapur]

1 hour ago, Guest Walter said:

the issue was whether or not the individuals who submitted the various recommendations could withdraw them.

That is how I read your original post. As I said, and as Mr. Novosielski agrees, the convention put the proposals / recommendations in the hands of the committee. They are no longer under the control of the submitter.

The time for the submitter to try to withdraw the proposal was during consideration of the motion to refer all remaining proposals to the committee.

[Guest Walter]

@Who's Coming to Dinner: This was a report of the Recommendations Committee; they received all of the proposed amendments, policy changes, etc. and were in the process of presenting when the delegates realized that there were too many to cover before the end of the convention.

[Guest Walter]

@Who's Coming to Dinner: This was a report of the Recommendations Committee; they received all of the proposed amendments, policy changes, etc. and were in the process of presenting when the delegates realized that there were too many to cover before the end of the convention.

[Guest Walter]

@Who's Coming to Dinner: This was a report of the Recommendations Committee; they received all of the proposed amendments, policy changes, etc. and were in the process of presenting when the delegates realized that there were too many to cover before the end of the convention.

[Guest Walter]

My apologies; every time I tried to post a reply, a captcha error appeared and told me to try again.

[Richard Brown]

11 hours ago, Guest Walter said:

My apologies; every time I tried to post a reply, a captcha error appeared and told me to try again.

Join the forum and you won't have that problem. No captchas, ability to edit posts, notification when someone replies to a post, etc. And no salesman will call. 

[Guest Who's Coming to Dinner]

Did a member of the committee (or anyone else) move adoption of the unconsidered recommendations? What is the wording of the motion that put them off to the next biannual meeting?

[Gary Novosielski]

It's difficult to nail down what happened here.

Now it seems as if the recommendations were in the process of being reported out, and were not yet moved.  It's hard to understand how they could then be referred to the committee since, if they were already in the hands of the committee and were not reported out, they are still in the hands of the committee.

Fortunately, none of these changes appear to affect the answer to the original question:

• It's too late to withdraw anything.

Since these recommendations came from a committee, it's not clear that there exist individuals who could seek to withdraw anything. Of course, when they finally come back at the next convention they can always be debated against and voted down.

Edited February 5, 2019 at 03:44 PM by Gary Novosielski

[Guest Walter]

The recommendations were being deliberated and voted on individually (there were over 30), so when the delegates noticed that the time constraint, a motion was made to postpone the consideration of the remaining recommendations and refer them to the committee. I think the logic was that because the unfinished business would fall to the ground, it was desirous for the committee to be able to pick up where they left off at the next convention rather than starting all over.  Is that even possible?  

[Richard Brown]

4 minutes ago, Guest Walter said:

The recommendations were being deliberated and voted on individually (there were over 30), so when the delegates noticed that the time constraint, a motion was made to postpone the consideration of the remaining recommendations and refer them to the committee. I think the logic was that because the unfinished business would fall to the ground, it was desirous for the committee to be able to pick up where they left off at the next convention rather than starting all over.  Is that even possible?  

Yes, not only is it possible, but it is probably the best thing that could have been done under the circumstances. Referring a matter to a committee it's the only way to keep a proposal alive from one session to the next when there is more than a quarterly time interval intervening between sessions. It is the only effective way to carry over an item from one convention to the next.

[Josh Martin]

2 hours ago, Guest Walter said:

The recommendations were being deliberated and voted on individually (there were over 30), so when the delegates noticed that the time constraint, a motion was made to postpone the consideration of the remaining recommendations and refer them to the committee. I think the logic was that because the unfinished business would fall to the ground, it was desirous for the committee to be able to pick up where they left off at the next convention rather than starting all over.  Is that even possible?  

Yes, this is entirely possible and is the recommended course of action in such circumstances. I believe my colleagues merely wished to clarify that this is not a motion to postpone and refer, because those are two separate motions. It is simply a motion to refer. (Actually, I suppose it is technically a motion to Suspend the Rules, since the motion to refer cannot ordinarily be appplied to 30+ different motions simultaneously.)

I concur with my colleagues that it is certainly too late at this time for the initial proposers to withdraw the motions. Indeed, since the motions were actually made by the Recommendations Committee, I don’t believe the initial proposers could have withdrawn them at that time either.

[Gary Novosielski]

It occurred to me that since the Recommendations Committee was only able to report and move 30 of the motions before time ran out, that they still had in their hands the remaining recommendations, and could simply pick up where they left off at the next meeting without the need for a motion to recommit (not that doing so would cause any harm).

Is there anything wrong with that logic?  I understand that Unfinished Business would fall to the ground, but it seems to me that if the committee still has these items, they may not be Unfinished Business after all.

[Atul Kapur]

Because it's a convention that we're talking about, I don't think we can assume that the Resolutions Committee has an ongoing existence beyond the final adjournment of the current convention. So I think a motion to refer is required.

[Guest Zev]

10 minutes ago, Atul Kapur said:

Because it's a convention that we're talking about, I don't think we can assume that the Resolutions Committee has an ongoing existence beyond the final adjournment of the current convention. So I think a motion to refer is required.

I get the impression that if the Resolutions Committee died then whatever resolutions they had also died. Nevertheless, the next Resolutions Committee can get the "Orphan Thirty" and make their recommendations six months from now.

[Atul Kapur]

3 hours ago, Guest Zev said:

I get the impression that if the Resolutions Committee died then whatever resolutions they had also died. Nevertheless, the next Resolutions Committee can get the "Orphan Thirty" and make their recommendations six months from now. 

Just to confirm: I think we're agreeing. Without the motion to refer, the resolutions committee and the resolutions not dealt with would both die with adjournment. With the referral (I do not assume that it's to the Resolutions Committee) they will be brought up at the next convention.

BTW, "biannual" is a word liable to confusion. It can mean that the next convention is in six months or twenty-four. From the discussion, it appears that the "twice a year" meaning is the most common one here on the forum.

[Richard Brown]

53 minutes ago, Atul Kapur said:

Just to confirm: I think we're agreeing. Without the motion to refer, the resolutions committee and the resolutions not dealt with would both die with adjournment. With the referral (I do not assume that it's to the Resolutions Committee) they will be brought up at the next convention.

BTW, "biannual" is a word liable to confusion. It can mean that the next convention is in six months or twenty-four. From the discussion, it appears that the "twice a year" meaning is the most common one here on the forum.

I agree with both paragraphs.  FWIW, the original poster, Guest Walter, referred to the committee as a "recommendations" committee, not a "resolutions" committee.  Perhaps the terminology makes no difference, but I think we should stick with the term he used. 

With regard to biannual vs biennial, I agree that "biannual" is a confusing term.  While I'm not at all l certain of this, I, too, believe the term is more often used for a meeting that occurs twice a year rather than every other year.  The proper term for a meeting which occurs every other year is "biennial".

Here is what I found with a brief Google search:  "Biannual, Biennial, Semiannual. These words do not all mean the same thing. Biannual means "twice a year," as does semiannual, whereas biennial means "occurring every two years."

Edited February 6, 2019 at 03:46 AM by Richard Brown
Corrected spelling of Guest Walter's name

[J. J.]

I think the motion could be withdrawn by the maker of the motion with the consent of the of the assembly, once it returns from of the committee (pp. 296-7). 

[Atul Kapur]

2 hours ago, Richard Brown said:

Here is what I found with a brief Google search

I used Merriam - Webster, which gives both meanings, although the "twice a year" meaning is listed first.

[Guest Walter]

My apologies; it's a biennial convention.  The Recommendations committee is a standing committee that submits all recommendations to the convention.