Restricting Nominations

[Guest G. W.]

Our constitution and by laws allow for open nominations of members as long as they attend a certain amount of meetings. A proposal to amend the by laws to restrict nominations to President, Vice President, Secretary, and Treasurer to allow only board members to run against them. This would seem as negating the write of the general membership to elect certain officers of the board. It seems you can change the by laws to any standards you want as long as they are lawful but it appear it is bad business to do so as you restrict the pool of candidates.

[hmtcastle]

And your question about parliamentary procedure is . . . ?

[Chris Harrison]

Our constitution and by laws allow for open nominations of members as long as they attend a certain amount of meetings. A proposal to amend the by laws to restrict nominations to President, Vice President, Secretary, and Treasurer to allow only board members to run against them. This would seem as negating the write of the general membership to elect certain officers of the board. It seems you can change the by laws to any standards you want as long as they are lawful but it appear it is bad business to do so as you restrict the pool of candidates.

Maybe so but a good solution to that is to defeat the amendment.

[Gary Novosielski]

Our constitution and by laws allow for open nominations of members as long as they attend a certain amount of meetings. A proposal to amend the by laws to restrict nominations to President, Vice President, Secretary, and Treasurer to allow only board members to run against them. This would seem as negating the

of the general membership to elect certain officers of the board. It seems you can change the by laws to any standards you want as long as they are lawful but it appear it is bad business to do so as you restrict the pool of candidates.

Well, you are certainly free to debate against it, and campaign against it, and vote against it.

It's much easier to keep the rights you have than to try to restore them once you've signed them away.

[Guest G.W.]

My question is how can you restrict a nomination of a president, vice-president, secretary, or treasurer to an existing board member? If a member does not seek the office the office would become vacant. I thought this situation may have come up before. An amendment would have to be in sufficient detail to cover the "what ifs".

Our constitution and by laws allow for open nominations of members as long as they attend a certain amount of meetings. A proposal to amend the by laws to restrict nominations to President, Vice President, Secretary, and Treasurer to allow only board members to run against them. This would seem as negating the write of the general membership to elect certain officers of the board. It seems you can change the by laws to any standards you want as long as they are lawful but it appear it is bad business to do so as you restrict the pool of candidates.

[Gary Novosielski]

My question is how can you restrict a nomination of a president, vice-president, secretary, or treasurer to an existing board member? If a member does not seek the office the office would become vacant. I thought this situation may have come up before. An amendment would have to be in sufficient detail to cover the "what ifs".

Ideally, yes, but you wouldn't be the first organization that adopted an ill-advised bylaw that prevented anyone from being eligible for an office, and being stuck with the consequences.

Your observations would make a good argument against adopting this amendment. Bring them up in debate.

[hmtcastle]

My question is how can you restrict a nomination of a president, vice-president, secretary, or treasurer to an existing board member?

By amending your bylaws. If you think it's a bad idea, debate against it and vote against it. If most everyone else thinks it's a good idea, you're out of luck.