postponing a committee report

[Dan Honemann]

On 5/8/2024 at 11:03 AM, Guest Bobby said:

RONR 14:11 says "It is not in order, either through a subsidiary motion or a main motion, to postpone a class of business composed of several items or subjects, such as reports of officers or reports of committees; but each report can be postponed separately as it is announced or called for."

I'm not sure how to interpret that. In our case, the Platform Committee report contained several individual items. When the report was announced, a member moved to postpone the whole report. I can't tell whether 14:11 prohibits that, or allows it.

What you are referencing in 14:11 is not applicable to your situation.  In your situation the assembly is proceeding under and in accordance with an agenda which it has adopted.

[Dan Honemann]

On 5/8/2024 at 11:15 AM, Richard Brown said:

I agree. My answers were based n large part on 14:11 which says very clearly that “each report can be postponed separately as it is announced or called for“. It is referring specifically to reports of officers and reports of committees.  In this case, we are talking about a committee report.

As has previously been stated, after an agenda has been adopted and prior to a report becoming pending, the assembly may amend the agenda by postponing the report to a later time. This will require a 2/3 vote, a vote of a majority of the entire membership, or unanimous consent.  

[Guest Bobby]

Quote

So to repeat, this was the situation --

• Our group has an "order of business" in the convention rules, and we adopted an agenda that matched it. (In the order of business, the Platform Committee report is immediately followed by the Fundraising Committee report.)
• During our convention, the chair said something like "OK, the next item is the Platform Committee report."
• A member said "I move to postpone the Platform Committee report until after the Fundraising Committee report."
• (Then there was a lot of debate about what the vote requirement was.)

 

Forgive me if I'm being repetitive, but I want to make sure I understand.

When we adopted our agenda, it matched the "order of business", so that was just a majority vote.

When the motion to postpone was made, I think that was effectively a motion to amend something previously adopted (i.e., the agenda). But I'm thinking that would put our agenda out of step with the "order of business". So I want to make sure it would be OK to do that with a "majority of the entire membership", even if that's less than 2/3.

[Dan Honemann]

On 5/8/2024 at 3:43 PM, Guest Bobby said:

 

Forgive me if I'm being repetitive, but I want to make sure I understand.

When we adopted our agenda, it matched the "order of business", so that was just a majority vote.

When the motion to postpone was made, I think that was effectively a motion to amend something previously adopted (i.e., the agenda). But I'm thinking that would put our agenda out of step with the "order of business". So I want to make sure it would be OK to do that with a "majority of the entire membership", even if that's less than 2/3.

Yes, the vote of a majority of the entire membership will be sufficient to adopt a motion to amend an adopted agenda.

 

[laser158689]

On 5/8/2024 at 11:38 AM, Dan Honemann said:

What you are referencing in 14:11 is not applicable to your situation.  In your situation the assembly is proceeding under and in accordance with an agenda which it has adopted.

Hmmm...  14:11 doesn't introduce any potential caveat to a "regular order of business" until the second sentence.  If that's a dependency for all of 14:11, the next edition should call that out earlier.

Another suggestion...  Remove item 69 from the II Table of Rules Relating to Motions as it just references §35 Rescind; Amend Something Previously Adopted.

[laser158689]

Going back to an earlier question in this thread, which of the possibilities in §14 SCD2 encompass "reports"?  Main motions?  Orders of the day (which seem to stem from main motions - "Can be applied to main motions...; can thus be applied to orders of the day... while they are actually pending as main motions...")?

 

Edited May 8, 2024 at 11:11 PM by laser158689

[laser158689]

On 5/8/2024 at 7:00 PM, laser158689 said:

Hmmm...  14:11 doesn't introduce any potential caveat to a "regular order of business" until the second sentence.  If that's a dependency for all of 14:11, the next edition should call that out earlier.

Another suggestion...  Remove item 69 from the II Table of Rules Relating to Motions as it just references §35 Rescind; Amend Something Previously Adopted.

While I'm at it...
A reference in §14 to §21:7 would be really helpful.

[Guest Bobby]

On 5/8/2024 at 10:15 AM, Richard Brown said:

On 5/8/2024 at 10:03 AM, Guest Bobby said:

RONR 14:11 says "It is not in order, either through a subsidiary motion or a main motion, to postpone a class of business composed of several items or subjects, such as reports of officers or reports of committees; but each report can be postponed separately as it is announced or called for."

I'm not sure how to interpret that. In our case, the Platform Committee report contained several individual items. When the report was announced, a member moved to postpone the whole report. I can't tell whether 14:11 prohibits that, or allows it.

I agree. My answers were based n large part on 14:11 which says very clearly that “each report can be postponed separately as it is announced or called for“. It is referring specifically to reports of officers and reports of committees.  In this case, we are talking about a committee report.

I think I finally understand this.

• It's OK to say, "I move to postpone the Platform Committee report until (some later time)."
• It's out of order to say, "I move to postpone ALL of the committee reports until (some later time)."

Am I getting that right?