National constitution sets order of business, alterable by president.

[Eli Zupke]

The national constitution of my fraternity contains the following provision:

Quote

In general, the order of business of all chapter meetings shall be:

• Opening Ceremonies
• Reading of Minutes
• Report of Chapter Officers
• Unfinished Business
• New Business
• Report of Committees
• Closing Ceremonies

When deemed advisable, the general order of business may be changed by the Chapter President.

In addition, our chapter bylaws have the following provision allowing the national constitution to take effect:

Quote

The rules and regulations of < University Name > shall take precedence of these bylaws. The National Constitution and any rules and edicts of the National Chapter and National Council shall take precedence of these bylaws unless written approval is given by the National Executive Director and the National Council.

In my mind, the provision in the national constitution clearly overrides RONR (12th ed.) 41:39, which gives the power of changing the order of business only to the assembly. In addition, "when deemed advisable" seems to me like an incredibly broad statement. I think this is a provision that needs to be struck or altered. The opportunity for this is at the national convention this summer, where we may send a member to sit on the Jurisdiction Committee that drafts amendments to the national constitution. By this time, I will have graduated and will therefore be ineligible to serve on this committee.

With the understanding that some of these questions may only be answered by our organization, I have the following questions:

1. Who determines what counts as "when deemed advisable"?
2. What would the Chapter President changing the order of business look like (as in, what would be said by who)?
3. Can our bylaws specify a different order of business, either by adding items or changing the order of the items?
4. What kind of alterations to this provision in the national constitution may be desirable?
5. Can I make a motion stating that our chapter (specifically, whoever we send to the Jurisdiction Committee) should try to get this changed? What would such a motion look like?

[Hieu H. Huynh]

15 hours ago, Eli Zupke said:

... these questions may only be answered by our organization...

I think your statement is appropriate.

[Guest Puzzling]

16 hours ago, Eli Zupke said:

When deemed advisable, the general order of business may be changed by the Chapter President

The statement is very vague so

In my opinion a majority of the meetings members  has the power to decide who is in charge of "when deemed advisable" and can via points of order and appeals decide what is deemed advisable.

I guess others will claim that the chapter president decides what is deemed advisable,  but given that it clearly is a (suspendable) rule of order that only means that you need a bigger majority.

16 hours ago, Eli Zupke said:

I think this is a provision that needs to be struck or altered.

I agree 👍

[Guest Puzzling]

16 hours ago, Eli Zupke said:

3 Can our bylaws specify a different order of business, either by adding items or changing the order of the items?

No.

But do remember that the order of business only gives very broad categories 

Every motion will fit somewhere so it is not really limiting the organization. 

Also it does not prohibit motions to lay on the table, postpone to a later time, and so on.

Looking at it more carefully it is not the standard from RONR,  do ask the assembly in charge why reports of committees is so low on  the order, (RONR puts it before unfinished business)

[Josh Martin]

19 hours ago, Eli Zupke said:

In my mind, the provision in the national constitution clearly overrides RONR (12th ed.) 41:39, which gives the power of changing the order of business only to the assembly.

Correct.

"If the unit for which the bylaws are to be drawn up is subject to a parent organization or superior body, such as a state or a national society (or both), or a federation, the bylaws governing at these higher levels should be studied for provisions which are binding upon subordinate units in a way that must be taken into account. The bylaws of a subordinate unit need to conform to those of a superior body only on clearly requisite points. For example, if the superior body limits the size of its subordinate units to 200 members, the bylaws may not contain a higher limit. But the subordinate unit should not adopt provisions from the other document that have no local application, and the bylaws of the superior body should not require it to do so." RONR (12th ed.) 56:7

Since the rule in question specifically refers to meetings of chapters, this seems to be a "clearly requisite point." So this order of business appears to be the "special order of business" for chapter meetings, in the same manner as if the chapter had adopted it in its own bylaws. Further, the rule provides that the order of business may be changed by the Chapter President (rather than only by the assembly).

19 hours ago, Eli Zupke said:

With the understanding that some of these questions may only be answered by our organization, I have the following questions:

1. Who determines what counts as "when deemed advisable"?
2. What would the Chapter President changing the order of business look like (as in, what would be said by who)?
3. Can our bylaws specify a different order of business, either by adding items or changing the order of the items?
4. What kind of alterations to this provision in the national constitution may be desirable?
5. Can I make a motion stating that our chapter (specifically, whoever we send to the Jurisdiction Committee) should try to get this changed? What would such a motion look like?

1. I would presume the Chapter President, since that is who the rule grants the authority to change the order of business.

2. I would think the Chapter President would simply announce the manner in which the order of business is being changed. For instance, "The Chapter President notes that we have a guest speaker today who needs to catch an early flight. Accordingly, the guest speaker's presentation shall precede the Reports of Chapter Officers in the order of business."

3. No, absolutely not. The chapter's bylaws may not conflict with the national constitution.

4. I think the best solution would be to remove it entirely. That would permit chapters to adopt their own orders of business or to simply follow the rules in RONR. In the alternative, I might suggest replacing the sentence which begins "In general..." with the sentence "Unless otherwise provided in the Chapter's bylaws or otherwise ordered by the Chapter in a particular case, the order of business of regular chapter meetings shall be..."

This would 1) make it so that the rule is a default order of business, but permits chapters to deviate from it (temporarily or permanently), 2) places the decision to deviate from the order of business with the Chapter rather than with the President, and 3) clarifies that the order of business applies only to regular meetings (which I expect was the intent).

5. Yes. The motion might say something like "I move to instruct the chapter's representatives to the Jurisdiction Committee to support the following amendments to the National Constitution..."

3 hours ago, Guest Puzzling said:

In my opinion a majority of the meetings members  has the power to decide who is in charge of "when deemed advisable" and can via points of order and appeals decide what is deemed advisable.

I guess others will claim that the chapter president decides what is deemed advisable,  but given that it clearly is a (suspendable) rule of order that only means that you need a bigger majority.

I'm not certain that the rule in question can be suspended. While I agree that the rule in question is in the nature of a rule of order, the rule is not a rule of the chapter, but a rule of the national organization. I am generally not inclined to think that an assembly may suspend rules imposed upon them by a superior body.

3 hours ago, Guest Puzzling said:

But do remember that the order of business only gives very broad categories 

Every motion will fit somewhere so it is not really limiting the organization. 

Also it does not prohibit motions to lay on the table, postpone to a later time, and so on.

I agree that the organization is not prohibited from adopting orders of the day or an agenda which does not conflict with the order of business (such as by arranging the items within Unfinished Business, for example), and certainly the organization is not prohibited from adopting motions to lay on the table, postpone to a certain time, and so on. The organization is, however, prevented from deviating from the order of business except as provided in the rule. So the organization could not, for instance, move an item of Unfinished Business before the reports of officers (although apparently the Chapter President could do so). And the organization certainly could not adopt its own order of business on a permanent basis.

So it does limit the organization somewhat in how it arranges its business.

I agree that placing Reports of Committees after New Business is highly unusual.

[Rob Elsman]

20 hours ago, Eli Zupke said:

When deemed advisable,

This is a good example of the "agentless passive voice".  "Deemed" by whom?  At first glance (and probably correctly) the president is the intended agent; however, the grammatical structure of the sentence does not definitively answer the question.  In my own opinion, those who draft bylaws should religiously avoid the use of the passive voice.

[Eli Zupke]

Thank you all for your responses! This has been incredibly helpful.

1 hour ago, Josh Martin said:

5. Yes. The motion might say something like "I move to instruct the chapter's representatives to the Jurisdiction Committee to support the following amendments to the National Constitution..."

Thanks, this perfect. I'll take this to our chapter's Jurisdiction Committee, and we'll see where it goes from there.

[Shmuel Gerber]

21 hours ago, Eli Zupke said:

The national constitution of my fraternity contains the following provision:

I see that you have something called the National Chapter. Are you sure that the provision relating to the order of business is not intended simply to apply to that chapter?

Edited March 14, 2021 at 06:25 PM by Shmuel Gerber

[Eli Zupke]

3 minutes ago, Shmuel Gerber said:

I say that you have something called the National Chapter. Are you sure that the provision relating to the order of business is not intended simply to apply to that chapter?

Yes. It is in the article regarding chapters at the university level. The national chapter (the organization that holds national conventions) has its own article, where the order of business for conventions is defined.

Edited March 14, 2021 at 06:29 PM by Eli Zupke
Added second explanatory sentence.