Limitation Period

[Tomm]

Is this even legal? Seems to violate a very basic rights of being a member as well as principles of parliamentary procedure? It seems to be giving the board, who is elected by the members, more power than the members?

"SECTION 6: LIMITATION PERIOD No Membership election or vote, initiated by petition of the Members, shall be held on an issue which is the same as, or substantially similar to, any issue which has been voted upon by the Membership within the current calendar year or any of the past three (3) calendar years (collectively known as the "Limitation Period"). The Board shall determine, in its sole discretion, whether the issue proposed to be voted upon by the Membership is the same as, or substantially similar to, an issue previously voted upon by the Membership during the Limitation Period. In the event a Membership election or vote is not required to be held due to the provisions of this section, then the Board shall not set, call, notice or post the proposed Membership election or vote or any Membership meeting in connection therewith, or take any other action normally associated with a Membership election or vote or a Membership meeting. This section shall not apply to the election or removal of any Board of Director."

[Gary Novosielski]

Yes, it does give the board unconscionable power over the membership, contrary to all that is good, right and true.

Unfortunately if it was duly added to the bylaws, it is perfectly valid.

[Josh Martin]

On 6/30/2023 at 11:13 AM, Tomm said:

Is this even legal?

What exactly do you mean by "legal?"

If you mean whether it is in compliance with applicable federal, state, or local law, that is a question for an attorney and is beyond the scope of this forum.

If you are instead asking whether this is permissible as a matter of parliamentary law, the answer is clearly "Yes."

"Within this framework under the general parliamentary law, an assembly or society is free to adopt any rules it may wish (even rules deviating from parliamentary law) provided that, in the procedure of adopting them, it conforms to parliamentary law or its own existing rules. The only limitations upon the rules that such a body can thus adopt might arise from the rules of a parent body (as those of a national society restricting its state or local branches), or from national, state, or local law affecting the particular type of organization." RONR (12th ed.) 2:2

[Atul Kapur]

@Tomm, you have repeatedly posted about provisions which you object to and feel are violations of members' basic rights. So I wanted to reinforce Mr. Martin's reply

On 6/30/2023 at 1:07 PM, Josh Martin said:

"Within this framework under the general parliamentary law, an assembly or society is free to adopt any rules it may wish (even rules deviating from parliamentary law) provided that, in the procedure of adopting them, it conforms to parliamentary law or its own existing rules. The only limitations upon the rules that such a body can thus adopt might arise from the rules of a parent body (as those of a national society restricting its state or local branches), or from national, state, or local law affecting the particular type of organization." RONR (12th ed.) 2:2

Whether we think that these provisions are good ideas or not does not affect their legitimacy (notice I didn't say "legality").

[Tomm]

On 6/30/2023 at 11:07 AM, Atul Kapur said:

Whether we think that these provisions are good ideas or not does not affect their legitimacy (notice I didn't say "legality").

Yeah, I get it. It's a long story of how a power-hungry general manager managed to convince the board that their job would be much easier if the GM made some of decisions that the board normally made, and that of course meant amending the bylaws so that the members were practically locked-out.