Authorization of a Standing Committee

[Tomm]

The Election Committee was originally established in the bylaws under a separate article listing all Standing Committee's. It, and all other Standing Committees were recently removed by the board, (which they have authority to do so) from the bylaws and placed into the Board Policies.

ELECTION COMMITTEE "Election Committee (also known as the Balloting Committee): The purpose of the Election Committee is to review and recommend election procedure changes, to recruit a sufficient number of Board candidates, conduct the candidate forums, ensure that elections and recall elections of the Board are conducted pursuant to the Corporate Documents, and announce the results."

Question: Do the authorized tasks relating specifically to the Election Committee as stated above meet the requirements stated in RONR 50:8 which states in the first bullet point: "if the committee is to have standing authority to act for the society on matters of a certain class without specific instructions from the assembly."

Question: Is it required that this Election Standing Committee must be established by either the bylaws or by a special rule of order and cannot be simply authorized in a Board Policy.

Please feel free to elaborate!

[Gary Novosielski]

Well, it differs substantially from the rules in RONR.  A nominating committee is quote typical, but in the usual case, it presents in its report a list of nominees, and then dissolves.  The election is handled by the assembly itself.  In the process, it may appoint committees to carry out specific tasks--notably the tellers, but these committees and individual volunteers explicitly do not have power to act in the name of the assembly.  

[Bruce Lages]

It seems to me that very likely all three criteria cited in 50:8 for determining when a standing committee must be authorized either in the bylaws or by a special rule of order are applicable to the Election Committee as described here: 

1) the committee is charged with acting on specific matters related to elections, all of which, with the possible exception of "review and recommend election procedure changes" seem to be on the committee's own authority;

2) business regarding the election procedures, recruiting of nominees, conducting candidate forums, and announcing election results appears to be automatically referred to this election committee; and

3) the committee's assigned function clearly affects parliamentary procedures, namely those involved in election procedures and announcing election results.

Therefore it seems apparent that this election committee cannot be established by a standing rule or ordinary resolution, but requires either a bylaw amendment or a special rule of order.

 

[Tomm]

On 5/31/2023 at 7:48 PM, Bruce Lages said:

Therefore it seems apparent that this election committee cannot be established by a standing rule or ordinary resolution, but requires either a bylaw amendment or a special rule of order.

Thanks for your help! That's pretty much how I understood RONR.

[Josh Martin]

On 5/31/2023 at 5:47 PM, Tomm said:

Question: Is it required that this Election Standing Committee must be established by either the bylaws or by a special rule of order and cannot be simply authorized in a Board Policy.

The nature of the committee in question is such that it must be established either by a provision in the bylaws or by a special rule of order. A standing rule is insufficient.

I would note, however, that "board policy" is not one of the types of rules defined in RONR. Many organizations will group their special rules of order and standing rules together in a single document, often referred to as "Policies and Procedures" or some such. So I don't know that I can say that this "cannot be simply authorized in a Board Policy," because there's nothing stopping the term "Board Policy" from including both special rules of order and standing rules.

Regardless of what this rule is called, however, its nature is such that it is a special rule of order, and therefore has the requirements for adoption of a special rule of order - a 2/3 vote with previous notice or a vote of a majority of the entire membership.

There would ordinarily also be some question of whether the board has the authority to adopt such a rule, but because your organization's board is authorized to amend the bylaws, I think it can reasonably be concluded that the board also has the authority to adopt special rules of order, even if those rules govern the affairs of the organization as a whole and not just the conduct of board meetings.

Edited June 1, 2023 at 01:22 PM by Josh Martin