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StevenGoldshore

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At a recent meeting of the board of my club, the board resolved by a required 2/3 majority to assess the members a certain amount of money for a capital project. The member vote due to occur in July also requires a 2/3 majority for passage. After additional thought, some board members are not sure about the project and want to rescind the original motion. Is a 2/3 board majority necessary to rescind the original resolution or will a simple majority suffice? Our by laws do not specify.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

SGoldshore

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At a recent meeting of the board of my club, the board resolved by a required 2/3 majority to assess the members a certain amount of money for a capital project. The member vote due to occur in July also requires a 2/3 majority for passage. After additional thought, some board members are not sure about the project and want to rescind the original motion. Is a 2/3 board majority necessary to rescind the original resolution or will a simple majority suffice? Our by laws do not specify.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

SGoldshore

The process of two votes and the two-thirds required on each is from your rules. They should be read carefully to see what they require.

Under the rules in RONR, if they govern here, RESCIND requires a majority if notice is given, or otherwise a two-thirds vote or a majority of the membership, whichever of those can be obtained.

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At a recent meeting of the board of my club, the board resolved by a required 2/3 majority to assess the members a certain amount of money for a capital project. The member vote due to occur in July also requires a 2/3 majority for passage. After additional thought, some board members are not sure about the project and want to rescind the original motion. Is a 2/3 board majority necessary to rescind the original resolution or will a simple majority suffice? Our by laws do not specify.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

SGoldshore

It sounds like you have some custom rules at work, here. Under RONR, the motion to Rescind requires a two-thirds vote, or a majority with notice, or a majority of the entire membership.

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Adoption of a motion to Rescind requires a majority vote of the board if previous notice of the motion has been validly given; otherwise, it requires either a two-thirds vote or a vote of the majority of the entire membership of the board. RONR (10th ed.), p. 295, ll. 24-31. This is even true for classes of main motions for which the bylaws require more than a majority vote for adoption, p. 98, ll. 27-32.

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Looks to me that rescind would not apply in the setup described by SGoldshore. His/her rules seem to suggest that it requires TWO votes to adopt something, but after only one of those votes nothing has yet been adopted; since rescind can be applied only to something previously adopted, it would not be in order until AFTER the second vote has taken place - and which adopted the motion.

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Looks to me that rescind would not apply in the setup described by SGoldshore. His/her rules seem to suggest that it requires TWO votes to adopt something, but after only one of those votes nothing has yet been adopted; since rescind can be applied only to something previously adopted, it would not be in order until AFTER the second vote has taken place - and which adopted the motion.

The rules apparently require that the same motion be adopted by two separate bodies. I don't see how that necessarily prevents the first, inferior, body from rescinding the motion it adopted before the second, superior, body adopts (or defeats) the same motion. It would seem akin to withdrawing a recommendation prior to that recommendation being acted on.

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