Is there a parliamentary remedy when the chair refuses to acknowledge motions, including points of order?

[Benjamin Geiger]

TL;DR: What can we do when the chair simply refuses to acknowledge that certain motions have been made, if there's no equivalent of standing up and simply shouting for a vote?

 

Today I witnessed some of the most nauseating examples of abuse of parliamentary practice I've ever seen.

Some background: there were two meetings today, for the Central Committee and the State Executive Committee of a state-level chapter of a major political party. I was asked by a member of both to observe; I'm not a member of either committee, so these don't directly involve me. Zoom meetings have been effectively shoehorned in via emergency declaration; there's language in our bylaws that can be seen as allowing for that. A problem is that there are no special rules of order to handle these meetings, so the party has been effectively winging it, with each county and each committee taking up its own customs.

For these particular meetings, the members were expected to use the text chat within Zoom to request the floor, and specify why they wanted it (make a motion, speak in debate, etc.). This explicitly included points of order and points of privilege.

The problem is that the chair and his subordinates maintained a queue of actions, and would pick and choose which requests for the floor he would grant based on (among other things) whether he supported the desired action. For instance, he skipped over several people who sought the floor for debate and several who sought to amend the motion on the floor in order to choose a motion for the Previous Question (which failed). Through a bit of subterfuge a single point of order was heard, was summarily shot down (on blatantly incorrect grounds, I might add), and none of the several people attempting to Appeal (including the person who initially made the Point of Order) were ever called on.

I know that in a traditional setting, one could simply stand and shout the appeal over the chair, but in this situation the chair maintained control over the mute functionality and the chat functionality, preventing any dissent from being acted on. What can we do? Removing the chair is effectively impossible, as it requires a 2/3 vote of the entire membership.

Edited March 14, 2021 at 07:08 AM by Benjamin Geiger
Punctuation.

[Guest Puzzling]

2 hours ago, Benjamin Geiger said:

Removing the chair is effectively impossible, as it requires a 2/3 vote of the entire membership

There are rules in RONR about removing the chair (chapter 62:2 - 62:15) but the quote you give seems to indicate that your organization has its own rules. Without knowing those rules we can not help can you quote them verbatim? 

Probably your organization has some (general)  dispute resolution procedure just use that one for this dispute. 

If nothing works you are probably not alone get all of them together and start your own pressure group (within or outside your party)

 

'Good luck

[Joshua Katz]

6 hours ago, Benjamin Geiger said:

I know that in a traditional setting, one could simply stand and shout the appeal over the chair, but in this situation the chair maintained control over the mute functionality and the chat functionality, preventing any dissent from being acted on. What can we do? Removing the chair is effectively impossible, as it requires a 2/3 vote of the entire membership.

I don't know. If the chair can, in essence, physically silence people, who cannot do anything to push back, you're seemingly at the mercy of the chair during the meeting. Seems like the membership will need to organize outside of the meeting - can't mute everyone and still have a meeting. 

However, the other issue is whether you can really say motions are properly adopted during a meeting where members were denied all rights of membership. But to raise that issue, you need to make a point of order. You see the problem. I think the members should probably organize to call, if it is permitted by your rules, a special in-person meeting. That meeting might want to consider, whether by discipline or otherwise, removing the power-hungry runaway chair.

[Richard Brown]

9 hours ago, Benjamin Geiger said:

What can we do? Removing the chair is effectively impossible, as it requires a 2/3 vote of the entire membership.

Welcome to the new and exciting (and barely manageable) world of large Zoom meetings  

Are you aware that §62:10 and 62:12 permit the removal of the chair from presiding at a particular meeting with  only a regular two-thirds vote AND provides that the chair must relinquish the chair from the moment the motion is made and seconded and stated by the chair? 

Edited March 14, 2021 at 04:12 PM by Richard Brown
Added last five words

[Josh Martin]

8 hours ago, Benjamin Geiger said:

TL;DR: What can we do when the chair simply refuses to acknowledge that certain motions have been made, if there's no equivalent of standing up and simply shouting for a vote?

I would note that even in those cases where this is an option, such blatant abuse of authority by the chair should be handled by removing the chair from office (first temporarily, and then permanently) since it really is not practical to keep doing this every time.

8 hours ago, Benjamin Geiger said:

I know that in a traditional setting, one could simply stand and shout the appeal over the chair, but in this situation the chair maintained control over the mute functionality and the chat functionality, preventing any dissent from being acted on. What can we do? Removing the chair is effectively impossible, as it requires a 2/3 vote of the entire membership.

I can't think of a parliamentary solution to this problem. Hopefully the public health situation improves soon so that the assembly may resume meeting in person.

It may be beneficial to consult an attorney to see what legal options (if any) are available.

2 hours ago, Joshua Katz said:

However, the other issue is whether you can really say motions are properly adopted during a meeting where members were denied all rights of membership. But to raise that issue, you need to make a point of order. You see the problem. I think the members should probably organize to call, if it is permitted by your rules, a special in-person meeting. That meeting might want to consider, whether by discipline or otherwise, removing the power-hungry runaway chair.

There is also the challenge of whether such a meeting is permitted under applicable law and whether it is safe for the organization to meet in this manner.

2 minutes ago, Richard Brown said:

Are you aware that §62:10 and 62:12 permit the removal of the chair from presiding at a particular meeting with  only a regular two-thirds vote AND provides that the chair must relinquish the chair from the moment the motion is made and seconded? 

Sure, but won't the chair just refuse to recognize those motions as well?

[Richard Brown]

2 minutes ago, Josh Martin said:

Sure, but won't the chair just refuse to recognize those motions as well?

Yes, that is a very distinct possibility and I was just about to edit my comment to say so.

[Richard Brown]

Mr. Geiger, having been involved in and also having served as parliamentarian for some very large zoom meetings of as many as 1000 participants, I understand and feel your pain and frustration  but unfortunately don’t have any good answers other than trying to work out these details and put procedures in place in advance of the meetings. 

Editedto add: in large Zoom meetings the use of the chat function is sometimes about the only practical way of members asking to be recognized, but it requires very good people who know RONR and the precedence of motions to monitor the chat function and to advise the chair of those members and motions with priority. There is frequently so much activity in chat that the chair himself cannot properly monitor it. Those large zoom meetings are a nightmare.
 

 

Edited March 14, 2021 at 04:28 PM by Richard Brown
Added last paragraph