Motion of Dissent - can the chair vote in a motion of dissent

[Guest Brian B]

If a motion of dissent has been moved, and the chair vacates the chair.  After the debate, can the chair whose motion had the dissent call made, vote?

One would think it is a conflict of interest?

[Gary Novosielski]

On 8/10/2022 at 1:49 AM, Guest Brian B said:

If a motion of dissent has been moved, and the chair vacates the chair.  After the debate, can the chair whose motion had the dissent call made, vote?

One would think it is a conflict of interest?

I'm not sure what a "motion of dissent" is nor what a "dissent call" on a chair's motion is.

If a presiding officer vacates the chair in order to participate in debate, he does not resume the chair as long as that motion is still being considered. I see no reason why he would not vote, since he has already shown himself to be partial to one side of the debate.   I don't see how it would be a conflict of interest, unless he debated one way and voted another.

But if the "dissent call" is something like an appeal from a ruling of the chair, then the chair does not vacate  while the appeal is debated.

Edited August 10, 2022 at 12:40 PM by Gary Novosielski

[Gary Novosielski]

Oops

Edited August 10, 2022 at 06:08 AM by Gary Novosielski
Oops

[Richard Brown]

On 8/10/2022 at 1:07 AM, Gary Novosielski said:

Oops

So what was the big “oops”?? 🤔

[Gary Novosielski]

On 8/10/2022 at 7:24 AM, Richard Brown said:

So what was the big “oops”?? 🤔

Just an extra empty reply that materialized mysteriously.

[Rob Elsman]

Instead of making a "motion of dissent", make a motion that proposes to do what you want to be done, the way you want it to be done.

[Guest Brian]

Hi,

here is the situation.  The Mayor of a council, who chairs the meeting, made a ruling to introduces some new procedures in contravention of the governance rules.  There was no motion moved or debated, just an edict.  A councillor moved a Motion of Dissent in the Mayor's edict/ruling that the new procedure would take effect immediately.  The mayor vacated the chair, but then voted against the Motion of Dissent.  My question is, wouldn't the Mayor have a conflict of interest?

[Atul Kapur]

No more of a conflict than the councillor who moved the motion.

 

In RONR terminoogy, this sounds like a point of order combined with an appeal (or a point of order put directly to the assembly). In RONR, the presiding officer does not vacate the chair for an appeal. So you should refer to your governance procedures since they appear to differ.

[Rob Elsman]

"Conflict of interest" is something having to do with the statutes or regulations that govern this council, rather than anything to do with parliamentary procedure.  You will need to seek the advice of an attorney to find out if some relevant law or regulation has been violated.

[Richard Brown]

Guest Brian, you are using termanology and talking about a process that is completely unknown to RONR and probably to parliamentarians generally. We have no idea what a “motion of dissent“ is. It is a term not used in RONR nor is it used in any other parliamentary authority that I am aware of. I agree with Dr. Kapur that it sounds rather like it was in the nature of a “point of order“ that something that the chair had done was incorrect and not in order. It further sounds like there was perhaps what amounted to “an appeal from the ruling of the chair“ and that the ruling of the chair was ultimately sustained.  If this was in the nature of a point of order and then an appeal from the ruling of the chair, the chair was entitled to participate in the debate on the appeal and also to vote on the appeal.  There was no need for him to vacate the chair to do so if that is what was happening  

It seems to me that this is probably a public body of some sort and a subject to not only its own rules and procedures, but to some sort of controlling law regarding its operating procedures.

On the other hand, this might all be stuff completely made up by both the mayor and by the Councillor who made the motion of dissent  and it is all simply something in their own heads.  It is definitely not in RONR nor in any other parliamentary procedure manual that I am aware of.

[Shmuel Gerber]

Brian is posting from an IP address in Australia, and presumably this council is deriving its practices from those in the Australian Parliament:

https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/House_of_Representatives/Powers_practice_and_procedure/Practice7/HTML/Chapter6/Speaker's_rulings

Those who guessed that this is akin to what RONR calls an appeal from the decision of the chair appear to have been on the right track. However, this is the RONR Q & A Forum, and the council doesn't seem to be using RONR, so we can't really provide good answers. 

 

[Atul Kapur]

In case Guest Brian is still reading (but at the risk of taxing the moderators' tolerance) I will note the following paragraph from Mr. Gerber's link, which in both cases the person whose ruling was subject to a motion to dissent was able to vote on the dissent:

Quote

In 1962 a Member moved dissent from a ruling by the Deputy Speaker. The Speaker took the Chair and in the division on the motion of dissent the Deputy Speaker voted against the dissent, which was negatived.[229] The Speaker ruled that it was in order for the Deputy Speaker to vote in the division.[230] On another occasion, having been relieved in the Chair by the Speaker, a member of the Speaker’s panel whose ruling had been subject to dissent voted in favour of the dissent.[231]

And in case Guest Brian's council follows Renton's Guide for Meetings and Organisations ("widely used as a reference work" in Oz by self-description and verified by Australian students of parliamentary procedure), it gives no indication that the person whose ruling is being dissented, and who has vacated the chair for the determination of the dissent, should abstain. In fact, Renton's is more permissive than RONR about the chair voting in general, but this isn't the place to discuss that.