Does the President of the board have the floor at all times even in sub committees

[Guest jason@rafinvestment.com]

The president of the Board, an ex officio member of sub committees via the bylaws, of our non profit in a sub committee meeting stated he did not need to be given the floor as he always has the floor by nature of being the president. The meeting was called by the chairman of the sub committee.  I find it hard to believe that he has a right to talk whenever he wants but I need to know either way.  If he is not allowed I need to point this out to the board.  

[Alicia Percell, PRP]

Presuming that your organization uses RONR, no, there is nothing at all in RONR which suggests that the board president has such super-speaker privileges.  When he is a member of a committee, he is subject to the same rules as any other member of the committee.  He needs to seek recognition and await the committee chair assigning him the floor just like everyone else.  I suggest that someone ask him to provide a citation for where one would find such a rule, and he won't be able to do so from RONR.  I suspect that if your organization had adopted its own rule to that effect, you'd already know about it.

[Gary Novosielski]

On 12/19/2022 at 9:58 PM, Guest *****@*****.tld said:

The president of the Board, an ex officio member of sub committees via the bylaws, of our non profit in a sub committee meeting stated he did not need to be given the floor as he always has the floor by nature of being the president. The meeting was called by the chairman of the sub committee.  I find it hard to believe that he has a right to talk whenever he wants but I need to know either way.  If he is not allowed I need to point this out to the board.  

No, that's ridiculous.

[Richard Brown]

Agreeing with Ms. Percell and Mr. Novosielski, the president  is a member of the committee “ex officio”, meaning automatically by virtue of holding some other office, and his rights in committee meetings  are no greater than those of any other committee member. See 47:20 of RONR (12th ed.).

[Josh Martin]

On 12/19/2022 at 8:58 PM, Guest *****@*****.tld said:

The president of the Board, an ex officio member of sub committees via the bylaws, of our non profit in a sub committee meeting stated he did not need to be given the floor as he always has the floor by nature of being the president.

No, this is not correct.

If the President is an ex officio member of the subcommittee, he has the same rights as other committee members. He has a right to speak in debate the same as any other member, but he must seek recognition, just as any other member would.

"As an ex-officio member of a committee, the president has the same rights as the other committee members, but is not obligated to attend meetings of the committee and is not counted in determining the number required for a quorum or whether a quorum is present." RONR (12th ed.) 47:20