Approving the Agenda

[Tomm]

Is it true that if an agenda specifies a specific time to adjourn it requires a 2/3rds vote to approve because it is, in essence, suspending a rule. The rule being the established standard order of business?

RONR Citation ???

Found it 41:61

Edited December 15, 2023 at 06:12 PM by Tomm
found answer

[Josh Martin]

On 12/15/2023 at 11:56 AM, Tomm said:

Is it true that if an agenda specifies a specific time to adjourn it requires a 2/3rds vote to approve because it is, in essence, suspending a rule. The rule being the established standard order of business?

No. Establishing a specific time to adjourn does not conflict with the standard order of business in RONR.

On 12/15/2023 at 11:56 AM, Tomm said:

RONR Citation ???

I would refer you Section 21 of RONR, particularly 21:3. While the text is clear that when a motion to adjourn is qualified in any way, such as adjourning at a future time, the motion to adjourn is an incidental main motion, nothing in the text suggests that a greater vote is required. As a consequence, I see no reason why including a time to adjourn in an agenda instead would require a 2/3 vote.

[Atul Kapur]

On 12/15/2023 at 1:17 PM, Josh Martin said:

Establishing a specific time to adjourn does not conflict with the standard order of business in RONR.

Does it not create a special order?

[Rob Elsman]

Take a look at RONR (12th ed.) tinted page 6, motion 3.

[Tomm]

On 12/15/2023 at 1:16 PM, Rob Elsman said:

Take a look at RONR (12th ed.) tinted page 6, motion 3.

But that appears to be a motion to adjourn during a meeting already in progress and does not address a specific time to adjourn stated on the agenda.

[Gary Novosielski]

On 12/15/2023 at 3:30 PM, Tomm said:

But that appears to be a motion to adjourn during a meeting already in progress and does not address a specific time to adjourn stated on the agenda.

When an agenda is adopted it is done during a meeting already in progress.

[Gary Novosielski]

On 12/15/2023 at 12:56 PM, Tomm said:

Is it true that if an agenda specifies a specific time to adjourn it requires a 2/3rds vote to approve because it is, in essence, suspending a rule. The rule being the established standard order of business?

RONR Citation ???

Found it 41:61

The standard order of business sets no time to adjourn, so no rule is being suspended by setting one.  Besides RONR specifically states that this motion requires a majority vote, which would supersede any more general rule.

[Rob Elsman]

A motion or order that the meeting be adjourned "at" an assigned hour really has to be understood as meaning "no later than", since the assembly can almost always adjourn before the assigned hour by majority vote (if I understand him correctly, Mr. Honemann does not agree).

In contrast, a special order can be taken up before its assigned hour only by adopting a motion to suspend the interfering rules, and this motion requires a two-thirds vote.

All this goes to illustrate the principle that an assembly cannot be made to stay in session much longer than it desires.

 

Edited December 15, 2023 at 09:07 PM by Rob Elsman

[Gary Novosielski]

On 12/15/2023 at 4:00 PM, Rob Elsman said:

A motion or order that the meeting be adjourned "at" an assigned hour really has to be understood as meaning "no later than", since the assembly can almost always adjourn before the assigned hour by majority vote (if I understand him correctly, Mr. Honemann does not agree).

In contrast, a special order can be taken up before its assigned order only by adopting a motion to suspend the interfering rules, and this motion requires a two-thirds vote.

All this goes to illustrate the principle that an assembly cannot be made to stay in session much longer than it desires.

 

That seems to be confirmed by the fact that setting a time to adjourn earlier than one already set requires only a majority vote, implying that moving the time later would require more than a majority vote.

[Josh Martin]

On 12/15/2023 at 1:48 PM, Atul Kapur said:

Does it not create a special order?

It does not seem to me that it does. As I understand the rules on this subject, a recess or adjournment scheduled for a particular hour is its own separate thing, and is not an order of the day. A recess or adjournment is, after all, not a "subject, question, or item of business." Further, the text discusses scheduled times for recess or adjournment separately from other items in several cases, and the rules for a scheduled recess or adjournment are different than the rules for a general or special order. Indeed, such matters take precedence over a special order.

Further, RONR is clear that incidental main motions to recess or adjourn to establish a scheduled recess or adjournment require a majority vote for adoption. Conversely, creating a special order requires a 2/3 vote for adoption. It therefore seems consistent to me that adopting an agenda containing special orders would require a 2/3 vote for adoption, but that adopting an agenda including scheduled recesses or adjournments would require only a majority vote for adoption.

"An order of the day, as stated above, is a particular subject, question, or item of business that is set in advance to be taken up during a given session, day, or meeting, or at a given hour, provided that no business having precedence over it interferes." RONR (12th ed.) 41:40

"It should be noted that a special order does not interfere with a recess or adjournment that is scheduled for a particular hour. When such an hour arrives, the chair announces it and declares the assembly in recess or adjourned, even if a special order is pending that was made before the hour of recess or adjournment was fixed. When the chair announces the hour, anyone can move to postpone the time for adjournment, or to extend the time of considering the pending question for a specified period. These motions are undebatable and require a two-thirds vote (see also 20:6–7, 21:14)." RONR (12th ed.) 41:56

"In an agenda, often an hour is assigned only to such subjects as the calls to order, recesses, adjournments, and particularly important items of business where it is desired to give the members greater assurance that the matter will not be considered before that time. These, then, are special orders for the time stated, and a strict adherence to these times provides a protection to the members and invited speakers, who often come from great distances." RONR (12th ed.) 41:59

On 12/15/2023 at 3:00 PM, Rob Elsman said:

A motion or order that the meeting be adjourned "at" an assigned hour really has to be understood as meaning "no later than", since the assembly can almost always adjourn before the assigned hour by majority vote (if I understand him correctly, Mr. Honemann does not agree).

To be clear, I would say that the assembly may still adjourn in such circumstances by majority vote when no motion is pending. The motion to adjourn becomes an incidental main motion if it conflicts with a time for adjournment previously established. Adjourning in such circumstances when business is pending would require a suspension of the rules, which would require a 2/3 vote.

On 12/15/2023 at 2:30 PM, Tomm said:

But that appears to be a motion to adjourn during a meeting already in progress and does not address a specific time to adjourn stated on the agenda.

This is correct. Nonetheless, an agenda may still include scheduled times for recess or adjournment and such an agenda may still be adopted by a majority vote (assuming there is no other reason adoption of the agenda would require a 2/3 vote).

[Dan Honemann]

On 12/16/2023 at 11:23 AM, Josh Martin said:

It does not seem to me that it does. As I understand the rules on this subject, a recess or adjournment scheduled for a particular hour is its own separate thing, and is not an order of the day. A recess or adjournment is, after all, not a "subject, question, or item of business."

I do not agree.

41:58    By a single vote, a series of special orders or general orders—or a mixture of both—can be made; such a series is called an agenda. When an hour is assigned to a particular subject in an agenda, that subject is thereby made a special order unless, by footnote or other means, it is stated that the time is intended merely for guidance, in which case the subject is only a general order. Subjects for which no hour is specified in an agenda are general orders.

41:59    In an agenda, often an hour is assigned only to such subjects as the calls to order, recesses, adjournments, and particularly important items of business where it is desired to give the members greater assurance that the matter will not be considered before that time. These, then, are special orders for the time stated, and a strict adherence to these times provides a protection to the members and invited speakers, who often come from great distances. Occasionally, a time is assigned for every item on the agenda. While this practice may be necessary in some cases, the resulting loss of flexibility often outweighs any benefits that may be gained.

[Atul Kapur]

On 12/16/2023 at 11:23 AM, Josh Martin said:

s I understand the rules on this subject, a recess or adjournment scheduled for a particular hour is its own separate thing, and is not an order of the day.

Thanks for your response, Josh. I must also disagree. As you and @Dan Honemann both quote, 41:59 lists recesses and adjournments as "subjects," so would be considered orders of the day based on 41:40, as you also quote, and 41:58. 

To me, the fact that 41:56 gives a rank to the various subjects, when the entire section is read in its entirety, doesn't mean that recesses and adjournments are a different category of thing.

[Josh Martin]

On 12/16/2023 at 12:08 PM, Dan Honemann said:

I do not agree.

41:58    By a single vote, a series of special orders or general orders—or a mixture of both—can be made; such a series is called an agenda. When an hour is assigned to a particular subject in an agenda, that subject is thereby made a special order unless, by footnote or other means, it is stated that the time is intended merely for guidance, in which case the subject is only a general order. Subjects for which no hour is specified in an agenda are general orders.

41:59    In an agenda, often an hour is assigned only to such subjects as the calls to order, recesses, adjournments, and particularly important items of business where it is desired to give the members greater assurance that the matter will not be considered before that time. These, then, are special orders for the time stated, and a strict adherence to these times provides a protection to the members and invited speakers, who often come from great distances. Occasionally, a time is assigned for every item on the agenda. While this practice may be necessary in some cases, the resulting loss of flexibility often outweighs any benefits that may be gained.

Then based on this, the answer to the original question is that an agenda which includes a scheduled hour for adjournment or recess requires a 2/3 vote for adoption - not because this conflicts with the standard order of business, but because the agenda includes special orders.

The assembly may, however, subsequently schedule a time for adjournment with a majority vote after the agenda has been adopted.

[Rob Elsman]

I am not at all convinced.  I do not think it is sufficiently established that the inclusion in an agenda of a certain hour at which to adjourn is an item of business or business at all.  I am doubtful that it is.  In my mind, it is just a procedural action.  Were such an action proposed when the standard order of business were the established order of business, such a motion would just be an ordinary, incidental main motion that could be made at any point in the proceedings when it did not interfere with a special order and did not violate the order of precedence; it would certainly not be required to be made only when the heading of New Business were reached.  Moreover, such a motion would only require a majority vote for adoption, since it would not create a special order.  Similarly, a motion to adjourn before the assigned hour would only require a majority vote for adoption, since it would not have the effect of taking up a conflicting special order before its assigned hour.

It is perplexing to me why it is asserted that the same parliamentary procedure requires a two-thirds vote in assemblies that adopt their order of business at the beginning of each session but a majority vote in assemblies that regularly use the standard order of business as their established order of business.  To be convinced, I need a reasonable explanation why this must be so.

Edited December 17, 2023 at 03:53 PM by Rob Elsman

[Dan Honemann]

On 12/17/2023 at 10:52 AM, Rob Elsman said:

I am not at all convinced.  I do not think it is sufficiently established that the inclusion in an agenda of a certain hour at which to adjourn is an item of business or business at all.  I am doubtful that it is.  In my mind, it is just a procedural action. 

Nobody has said that adjournment, when included in an adopted agenda, is an "item of business".  41:58-59 very clearly tell us that it is a "subject" which will be either a special order or a general order.  I don't see how RONR could possibly be made any clearer in his regard.

[Rob Elsman]

It is not even a "subject".  That's exactly why a two-thirds vote is not required for adoption of a motion to adjourn at an assigned future hour when the standard order of business is the established order of business.  Were the motion a "subject" that creates a special order, a two-thirds vote would be required.  But RONR (12th ed.) tinted page 6, motion 3, tells us that only a majority vote is required.  I am not convinced, but I am still perplexed.

 

[Atul Kapur]

On 12/17/2023 at 2:12 PM, Rob Elsman said:

It is not even a "subject".

On 12/16/2023 at 1:08 PM, Dan Honemann said:

41:59    In an agenda, often an hour is assigned only to such subjects as the calls to order, recesses, adjournments, and .... These, then, are special orders for the time stated ...

I guess you'll have to take your argument up with the authors.

[Rob Elsman]

Then someone needs to explain why motion 3 only requires a majority vote when the standard order of business is operative, since the cited reasoning also applies in this case.

I don't think it can be both ways.

[Dan Honemann]

On 12/17/2023 at 3:36 PM, Rob Elsman said:

Then someone needs to explain why motion 3 only requires a majority vote when the standard order of business is operative, since the cited reasoning also applies in this case.

I don't think it can be both ways.

This statement is far too simplistic to mean much of anything at all, but in any event, please keep in mind that if there is any apparent conflict between what is said in the main body of RONR and what is found in the tables in the back of the book, it is the former that you are to rely upon and not the latter.

[Shmuel Gerber]

On 12/16/2023 at 11:23 AM, Josh Martin said:

On 12/15/2023 at 2:48 PM, Atul Kapur said:

Does it not create a special order?

It does not seem to me that it does.

I think we've discussed this recently in the forum. I don't like to disagree with Mr Honemann, but in this case I agree with Mr Martin's earlier response. 

I think that recesses and adjournments should not be considered special orders. But that is an academic question and is confounded by what is said in 41:59.

For purposes of this topic, however, I think it is sufficient to say that the most reasonable interpretation of the statement in 41:61 that "At a session that already has an order of business, an agenda can be adopted by a majority vote only if it does not create any special orders and does not conflict with the existing order of business; otherwise, a two-thirds vote is required.", the only possible special orders referred to are those that would otherwise require a 2/3 vote to create.

 

[Dan Honemann]

On 12/17/2023 at 10:08 PM, Shmuel Gerber said:

I think we've discussed this recently in the forum. I don't like to disagree with Mr Honemann, but in this case I agree with Mr Martin's earlier response. 

I think that recesses and adjournments should not be considered special orders. But that is an academic question and is confounded by what is said in 41:59.

Well, I think it more accurate to say that your view of this is completely refuted and not merely "confounded" by what is said in 41:59 and elsewhere in RONR.

I think 41:61 is very clearly telling us that, if an assembly's prescribed order of business is the "standard" order of business prescribed in RONR, adoption of an agenda specifying a specific hour at which to adjourn will require a two-thirds vote. 

 

 

 

[Shmuel Gerber]

On 12/18/2023 at 7:56 AM, Dan Honemann said:

Well, I think it more accurate to say that your view of this is completely refuted and not merely "confounded" by what is said in 41:59 and elsewhere in RONR.

It's always confounding when the book gets things wrong. 🙂

[Dan Honemann]

On 12/18/2023 at 9:14 AM, Shmuel Gerber said:

It's always confounding when the book gets things wrong. 🙂

Yeah, like in Table II, Motion 3.  🙂

[Rob Elsman]

Well, thank you--both of you--for this little colloquy.  For my part, it has always been a pleasure to learn from the two of you.  I would love to be a fly on the wall when you all discuss this in preparation for the next edition.  🪰

[Wright Stuff]

On 12/18/2023 at 9:21 AM, Dan Honemann said:

Yeah, like in Table II, Motion 3.  🙂

Is Table II, Motion 3 wrong? If so, what notation should I make in the book?