bylaws vs RONR

[Greg]

Hi All,

Our bylaws state:

AMENDMENTS TO THE BYLAWS

(a) These bylaws may be altered, amended or repealed by a MAJORITY vote of the Membership only once every odd-numbered ending calendar year. The bylaws must be offered at the Second Membership Meeting of the odd-numbered calendar year and must be voted upon at the Third Membership Meeting of the year.

our bylaws also state that:

ARTICLE V (j)

Membership meetings will be governed by Roberts Rules of Order Revised.

I believe, correct me if I'm wrong RONR states that bylaws changes require a 2/3rds vote.

Yet as you can read, our bylaws state that it requires "a majority vote" with the previous notice listed.

Our Executive Board opted to go with the 2/3rds requirement from RONR even though our bylaws state "majority".

My question is: If you are a professional parliamentarian or a registered parliamentarian would this seem kosher to you?

Don't the bylaws supersede RONR? and how would you correct this mess?

During our last bylaw amendment meeting. The bylaws were changed

[Gary c Tesser]

Greg, I am not credentialled, but either way, I have no idea what is going on. Particularly, I don't see how any board has any authority to get involved in the bylaws-adoption process. (Greg, is this posted thread a follow-up to another discussion-thread?)

I'm not sure what needs to be corrected ... or what can. Greg, have you read Official INterpretation 2006-18, "WRONG VOTE AND UNTIMELY POINT OF ORDER" -- elsewhere on this website, as we used to say before some of us caught on to Internet clicking, at www.robertsrules.com/interp_list.html#2006_18 ? If not, please do; if so, where do we go from here?

[Trina]

....

Yet as you can read, our bylaws state that it requires "a majority vote" with the previous notice listed.

Our Executive Board opted to go with the 2/3rds requirement from RONR even though our bylaws state "majority".

My question is: If you are a professional parliamentarian or a registered parliamentarian would this seem kosher to you?

Don't the bylaws supersede RONR? and how would you correct this mess?

During our last bylaw amendment meeting. The bylaws were changed

Yes, the bylaws supersede RONR, so it appears that majority vote is what is required in your organization.

As Mr. Tesser pointed out, it's unlikely the board had any business trying to control the process in this way.

However, since you say the bylaws were changed (using the two-thirds standard 'imposed' by your board, I assume?), what's the problem at this point? If there was a two-thirds vote in favor of changing the bylaws, that would seem to guarantee that you had the required majority vote...

Oh, and since you specified that you wanted the opinions of professional or registered parliamentarians, I'll be clear that I'm neither -- so add the requisite dose of salt, as you see fit .

edited to add: When you say the bylaws were changed, do you perhaps actually mean the bylaws amendment process, as written, was ignored by decree of the Executive Board??