Disparaging of Vote and 2/3 vote for Impeachment

[Guest Gabriel J. Fontenot]

Question:

Is there any time a member of a body, in this case a Student Senate Senator, be prevented or barred from voting? 

Situation Simplified:

My friend a Student Senator was "impeached" by his student Senate where there were 9 yeas and 4 Nos with 2 abstentions (a member who left and my friend were not counted in abstentions), this reached the necessary 2/3rds of members present and voting required but my friend was not allowed to vote during the secret ballot and was made to leave the chamber for the ballot. He has to be convicted by the Student Supreme Court. No rule in the Constitution, Bylaws, Rules of Order, or special rules clarify any time a senator can be denied voting ability or removal from the chamber save for unruliness. If he was present he would have voted No, of course, and thus it would have been 9 - 5 which is NOT 2/3rds and would have resulted in Exonneration. Could this be deemed grounds for dismissal in his court?

[Dan Honemann]

On 3/28/2024 at 3:44 PM, Guest Gabriel J. Fontenot said:

Question:

Is there any time a member of a body, in this case a Student Senate Senator, be prevented or barred from voting? 

Situation Simplified:

My friend a Student Senator was "impeached" by his student Senate where there were 9 yeas and 4 Nos with 2 abstentions (a member who left and my friend were not counted in abstentions), this reached the necessary 2/3rds of members present and voting required but my friend was not allowed to vote during the secret ballot and was made to leave the chamber for the ballot. He has to be convicted by the Student Supreme Court. No rule in the Constitution, Bylaws, Rules of Order, or special rules clarify any time a senator can be denied voting ability or removal from the chamber save for unruliness. If he was present he would have voted No, of course, and thus it would have been 9 - 5 which is NOT 2/3rds and would have resulted in Exonneration. Could this be deemed grounds for dismissal in his court?

Is the current edition of Robert's Rules of Order your parliamentary authority?  If so, take a look at 23:7 and see if it doesn't answer your question.

[Guest Gabriel J. Fontenot]

Yes it is, and Thank you the listed section was very helpful.

[Richard Brown]

On 3/28/2024 at 2:44 PM, Guest Gabriel J. Fontenot said:

Is there any time a member of a body, in this case a Student Senate Senator, be prevented or barred from voting? 

It is perhaps worth pointing out that if the student Senate or student government has a rule prohibiting a member who is being impeached or otherwise being disciplined from Voting, that rule would supersede the rule in RONR.  Absent such a rule, it does appear that the “accused“ member should have the right to vote in the impeachment hearing.

Edited to add: this deprivation of his right to vote may or may not constitute a continuing breach, depending upon the circumstances, the effect of the impeachment, etc., but I suspect it would constitute a continuing breach and would therefore still be subject to a Point of Order at any time during the continuation of the breach.

Edited March 29, 2024 at 01:03 AM by Richard Brown
Added last paragraph

[Josh Martin]

On 3/28/2024 at 2:44 PM, Guest Gabriel J. Fontenot said:

Is there any time a member of a body, in this case a Student Senate Senator, be prevented or barred from voting? 

Only if the member's rights have been suspended through formal disciplinary proceedings in Ch. XX of RONR, or if the organization's bylaws so provide. And I'm inclined to think only the latter in this case, since it seems the organization has its own disciplinary procedures.

On 3/28/2024 at 2:44 PM, Guest Gabriel J. Fontenot said:

My friend a Student Senator was "impeached" by his student Senate where there were 9 yeas and 4 Nos with 2 abstentions (a member who left and my friend were not counted in abstentions), this reached the necessary 2/3rds of members present and voting required but my friend was not allowed to vote during the secret ballot and was made to leave the chamber for the ballot.

It would appear the organization has its own customized rules on disciplinary procedures. As a result, a member is not required to leave the room during this vote unless the organization's bylaws so provide.

The disciplinary procedures in Ch. XX of RONR do provide that the accused leaves the room during the consideration of the question of guilt and the penalty, but since you aren't following those procedures, I don't think that's relevant.

On 3/28/2024 at 2:44 PM, Guest Gabriel J. Fontenot said:

He has to be convicted by the Student Supreme Court. No rule in the Constitution, Bylaws, Rules of Order, or special rules clarify any time a senator can be denied voting ability or removal from the chamber save for unruliness. If he was present he would have voted No, of course, and thus it would have been 9 - 5 which is NOT 2/3rds and would have resulted in Exonneration. Could this be deemed grounds for dismissal in his court?

RONR has no rules pertaining to "courts," so it has no answer to the question of "Could this be deemed grounds for dismissal in his court?"

It seems that, as is unfortunately typical for student government organizations, your student government has gotten a little carried away with mimicking actual governments and has made its procedures needlessly complicated. So your organization will ultimately have to look to its own rules to answer your question.

But if it helps any, under ordinary procedures where such matters are handled via a Point of Order and Appeal, a violation of the right to vote is grounds to declare the vote null and void if the number of votes so affected is sufficient that it could have changed the result, as seems to be the case here.

"If one or more members have been denied the right to vote, or the right to attend all or part of a regular or properly called meeting during which a vote was taken while a quorum was present, a point of order concerning the action taken in denying the basic rights of the individual members can be raised so long as the decision arrived at as a result of the vote has continuing force and effect. If there is any possibility that the members' vote(s) would have affected the outcome, then the results of the vote must be declared invalid if the point of order is sustained. If there is no such possibility, the results of the vote itself can be made invalid only if the point of order is raised immediately following the chair's announcement of the vote. If the vote was such that the number of members excluded from participating would not have affected the outcome, a member may wish, in the appropriate circumstances, to move to Rescind or Amend Something Previously Adopted (35), to move to Reconsider (37), or to renew a motion (38), arguing that comments in debate by the excluded members could have led to a different result; but the action resulting from the vote is not invalidated by a ruling in response to a point of order raised at a later time." RONR (12th ed.) 23:7

I would add, however, that RONR quite clearly provides that a member should not vote on a question of personal interest not common to other members (and I'd say disciplinary procedures qualify), although he ultimately cannot be prevented from doing so. So the member defending himself by pointing out that he intended to violate some other rule may not go over especially well.

"No member should vote on a question in which he has a direct personal or pecuniary interest not common to other members of the organization. For example, if a motion proposes that the organization enter into a contract with a commercial firm of which a member of the organization is an officer and from which contract he would derive personal pecuniary profit, the member should abstain from voting on the motion. However, no member can be compelled to refrain from voting in such circumstances." RONR (12th ed.) 45:4

Edited March 29, 2024 at 09:12 PM by Josh Martin