Role of Amendments Committee

[snholland]

Our bylaws state:

Section2.        Amendments Committee

An Amendments Committee of three shall be appointed by the Chairman to review proposed amendments to these Bylaws and prepare them for presentation to the Conference business meeting. The committee appointed during each convention shall begin to serve at its conclusion and continue to serve until it has completed its report to the succeeding convention.

Is there any authority for this amendments committee created by the rule above to rule that an amendment proposed to it is out of order because it conflicts with the current bylaws in some way?  Or must such a provision that it can reject certain proposed amendment required to be stated in the bylaws before it can take such action?

[Guest Zev]

There is such a thing as a proposed bylaw that conflicts with some current provision in the bylaws. However, if the proposed words actually replace the current conflicting words, then the assembly will make its choice between the old wording and the new and no conflict will exist since the new text takes effect instantaneously.

Committees exist to study the subject and make recommendations. If in the opinion of the committee some other phrasing of the proposed amendment, or some adjustment to a different place in the bylaws is needed to make everything work, then by all means the committee should issue its finding to the assembly to the best of its ability and let the assembly decide what to do. If the committee has any feelings about any of the proposals then they should indicate exactly what that is. As an assembly member I would be extremely pleased if the committee issued a lengthy recommendation (hopefully not too lengthy) that showed that they took their responsibility seriously and looked at all the benefits and potential pitfalls for each amendment.

However, as a committee member I would never recommend that the report just say that it is out of order. This would deprive the assembly of options or the studied opinion of the committee, which is the very reason they created the committee and selected me to sit on it.

[Richard Brown]

8 hours ago, snholland said:

Is there any authority for this amendments committee created by the rule above to rule that an amendment proposed to it is out of order because it conflicts with the current bylaws in some way?  Or must such a provision that it can reject certain proposed amendment required to be stated in the bylaws before it can take such action?

It is ultimately up to each organization to interpret its own bylaws. That is something we cannot do for you. However, my own interpretation of the language you quoted is that the amendments committee can and probably should make a recommendation on each proposed amendment but that the committee has no authority to actually rule that a proposed amendment is out of order unless the bylaws specifically give it that authority. I don't see any such language in the provision you quoted.

[Dan Honemann]

I agree that, based solely upon what has been posted, this committee appears to have no authority to rule any proposed amendment out of order, but I think it would be entirely proper for it to report a recommendation that a proposed amendment not be adopted for the reason that, if adopted, it will conflict with another provision in the bylaws that will remain in effect.