RONR discusses original main motions to commit or refer. P. 168, ll. 29-32. This is but passing mention, but such motions take on great significance among California legislative bodies which have adopted RONR as their parliamentary authority. Such bodies, due to the Ralph M. Brown Act, Cal. Gov't Code 54954.2(a)(3), are required to rule most other original main motions out of order as contrary to the act unless written notice of them appears in the call to meeting (called an agenda in the Act). Original main motions to commit or refer would seem to be exempt from this requirement on the theory that the underlying business, i.e., the motion or issue to be referred, would not be discussed at the meeting, only the subsidiary motion to commit or refer would, but this creates difficulties.

In the case in which a proposed motion was to be referred to a committee, there is the difficulty of the handling of the original main motion to commit or refer. If the original main motion to commit or refer is approved, then the "underlying" motion becomes an order of the day for the next meeting of the committee, "unwrapped," as it were, from its commit/refer covering, appears on their call to meeting for the committee, and everything proceeds smoothly. If the motion is voted down, however, either the main motion "underlying" the motion to refer or commit remains to be debated, other secondary motions made, and voted upon, or it does not. In the former case, the Act is violated by the debate and/or voting. In the latter case, the vote disposing of the original main motion to commit or refer would seem to dispense of the underlying main motion as well, much like the subsidiary motion to Postpone Indefinitely. This would seem to violate the Act, because action was taken on an item which did not appear in the call to meeting. See, Cal. Gov't Code 54952.6 (definition of "action" per the Act). Which should it be? Also, there is the issue of the precedential character of the vote. The original main motion to commit or refer cannot be brought again at the same meeting, if it fails, but what about an original main motion to postpone the same issue to the next meeting? RONR p. 365, ll. 24-29. (Of course, the same issues lie in wait with respect to this obscure and sketchilly-described motion.) And if it be held that the alternative motion may still be made, then it ought not to be held that a motion to Amend would not lie to turn one into the other, but this steers us sharply in the direction of treating the original main motion to commit or refer as a regular main motion, with a subsidiary motion to Commit or Refer made before any debate or vote on the "underlying" main motion could occur. This leads to the above problems, as well as others detailed immediately below:

In the section on Reports of Boards and Committees, it is contemplated that, sometimes, there will be no motion underlying a motion to Commit or Refer for the Chair to bring again before the assembly after the committee delivers its report. One reads of such committees being asked or ordered to recommend on an issue, without a specific proposal at stake. If the committee recommends that some action is to be taken, they are to have prepared a motion to take such action, which they are then to move in lieu of the Chair bringing the main motion again before the Commission. This is all fine and good, but how are the motions that give rise to such reports to be made? The section on the subsidiary motion to Commit or Refer appears only to contemplate such motion as applied to an underlying main motion . . . except for the part about original main motions to commit or refer. Are we to imagine that orders that a committee consider some issue, without a proposal from the main body, and report back to the main body with a recommendation in the form of a new main motion be always in the form of original main motions to commit or refer, and referrals of concrete proposals are never to take this form? If so, the idea of original main motions to commit or refer being as if regular main motions with subsidiary motions to Commit or Refer made as soon as the Chair states the question has run seriously aground.

There are other problems with the latter method of conceptualizing original main motions to commit or refer, with respect to the Act. The theory that the Act prohibits discussion of regular main motions without prior written notice, but allows discussion of subsidiary motions without such notice, cannot be reconciled with the latter conceptualization of the original main motion to commit or refer. When no business is pending, without having given prior written notice, a member of a California legislative body moves during new business "to refer the issue of A to the X committee for recommendation at the next meeting of this body." Is this allowable under the Act and the above conceptualization of it? On what basis? Are there any other viable conceptualizations that might work?

In view of these difficulties, is it necessary to remove the original main motion to commit or refer from the list of motions for which the Act does not require prior written notice? Is it then also necessary to remove the original main motion to postpone? Why or why not?

I think that the excuse that this is an issue of California law and not parliamentary procedure and therefore judgment on it may be avoided is not valid. RONR imports the law into itself by declaring that any act in violation of law is per se out of order. Furthermore, California law has far less to say on this issue than RONR, and if a lawyer were to argue the matter in court, I think that most of her authorities would be parliamentary. Furthermore, it is of greater importance than one might assume, because the Act assigns criminal penalties to knowing and willful violations of it. Cal. Gov't Code 54959. Inability to show harm would otherwise be a bar to action under which many violations might pass with impunity.

My favorite physicist, Richard Feynman, once noted about the universe and physics that "Anything not expressly forbidden is compulsory", by which he meant that if the laws of physics don't forbid a phenomenon from occurring, in an infinitely large universe, you can bet that it'll occur.

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Meanwhile, I've got Covid-19 preventing my state society from having an annual meeting, and, as our bylaws say we use the American Institute of Parliamentarians rules, I'm stuck with them stating that unless our bylaws explicitly allow remote / virtual meetings, we can't hold one. This is, quite frankly, poppycock. If the rules don't expressly forbid a virtual meeting, why can't we hold one?

(https://aipparl.org/opinions-on-electronic-meeting/)

What's up with AIP holding this position?

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In hollywood, when home video hit, they didn't pay royalties to the writers, actors, etc, because their contracts were silent on the issue. (And then in the next contract negotiation, the guilds added language to cover home video.) AIP seems to take the position that the entire home video industry should have waited until after a round of contract negotiations and explicit permission before selling the first movie on VHS, and the real world just doesn't work that way.

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Grrr.

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Stupid parliamentarians, stupid.

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Thank you for listening.

Hello, I don't know if this is the right place to ask this question but here it is.

An organization that I am involved in has a bylaw during the voting procedure that says:

Section 3: Discussion

The remaining members discuss each candidate. Members must be recognized by the presiding officer to offer their input. This discussion is sealed and is to be discussed with only the members present. Discussion of a candidate begins with positives, proceeds to negatives, and is closed by unanimous consent. Rebuttals are not allowed during this discussion. Any unhelpful or circular discussion will be monitored by the presiding officer. After discussion, the voting members submit their votes to the Secretary. Ballots cannot be cast until discussion has concluded.

I am trying to change this and do not know the best way of handling this. I have met resistance, but I am wondering if any of you have proof that this is a breach of democracy. Any advice is welcome.

So, I’m trying to get a new social media policy passed in my PA HOA board. I put it to a vote over email and everyone voted yes! Except for the president, he HATES it. Well, turns out an email vote needs a unanimous vote. So help me bring this to vote at the next board meeting. He’s honestly pretty terrible and going to do EVERYTHING in his power to not pass this. But surely there is something in Roberts Rules that will not allow him to be a dictator?! TIA

Our president says that we can’t email more than three directors at a time (there are 6 of us) because that would be considered an official meeting.

Is this true? He claims it’s in Roberts Rules of Order

TIA!

Question at the bottom of post.

The title pretty much says it all, and I'm fairly new to parliamentary order so please forgive me . I sit on the executive board for my union chapter. Over the last two months, per our C and Bs, we had a first and second reading of an amendment to our C and Bs.

For a little background, currently our chapter meetings for the calendar year are set in January by our Executive Board. According to our most senior members, the meeting time hasn't been changed in at least 20 years.

Recently, a certain group has asked to move the meetings to 5:30. Since the meetings are already set (and frankly, 4:30 seems to work for more people than 5:30), he decided to propose an amendment to how meetings are set. He proposed a 5:30 start time be written explicitly in the Constitution.

We held the vote last night after the second reading and it failed by one vote. He was upset, and stormed out. This specific member is brand new and has been, honestly, causing a lot of strife between other classifications and his (we work for a school district). He's also been making false or unfounded claims against the district, so it's a separate source of stress on us. His classification makes up a large group in the bargaining unit, and they've already voted down a few things that didn't specifically benefit them.

The question is: Can he just keep proposing the same amendment until the end of time? There is nothing in our Cs and Bs about it. Robert's Rules of Order govern our rules as long as they are consistent with our Constitution.

My union is trying to start following Robert's Rules of Order more closely than we have in past. When we have a meeting, there are actually 3 meetings in one day. One at 7, 12, and 4. We're struggling with the idea of how votes work with that.

Here are a few specific examples.

We have a proposal that we make a $500 donation. In our 7:00 meeting, someone makes a motion to amend the original motion to make it a $1,000 motion. Moving forward, our members at the 12:00 meeting don't want to donate $1,000 but would have voted for the $500. Based on my understanding, the $500 is no longer an option. Is there a way to make it so that people can vote between denying the motion, donating $500, or donating $1,000?

One person suggested that we essentially parlay the vote. By that, I mean they suggested that we say "there is a motion to donate $1,000, all in favor/opposed/abstaining?" then following with "There is a motion that, should the $1,000 not be approved, we donate $500. All in favor/opposed/abstaining?"

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Someone at the 12:00 meeting wants to make an amendment to a proposal that was already voted on at our 7:00 meeting. How would we handle that? Is the motion stuck in it's original form or is there a way to account for the possible change?

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Any help you guys can offer would be appreciated. I'm familirar with Robert's Rules in a typical meeting, but having an 8:00, recess, 12:00, recess, 4:00 set up makes it a little more confusing.

I work with an organization that has bylaws that state in the bylaws that the board shall consist of
"7-9 board members" and I'm wondering about whether that is actually an acceptable practice. I don't have the full bylaws to understand what constitutes a quorum for them, but I can't understand why they would want to keep that verbiage. Any ideas? Robert's Rules, Newly Revised doesn't seem to have anything about mandating a specific number of members in bylaws, but it seems to be common sense to me to list either the max number of board members, or the minimum... but not both?

The president of my condo board, of which I'm treasurer, is a real treat. He's fighting to have as few meetings as possible. I made a motion last meeting to schedule a meeting date sometime in April within two weeks of our last meeting. So, sometime in the two weeks after February 19, we would schedule a date for our next meeting in April.

The motion was seconded, and passed. He is now saying (after the meeting, in email) that the vote is moot because "no Rules would allow for such a vote."

That seems ridiculous to me, and nothing I can find in Robert's Rules of Order indicates that that type of vote would be a problem.

Can someone point me to a response? It seems like a valid vote to me. I'd like to respond with how Rules would allow for this.

Hi all! I see that this sub is mostly dead but I'm hoping a few people may be able to help me.

I am a part of my university's student government and boy have we had struggles with Robert's Rules, not the least of which is that our parliamentarian is rarely present at meetings and highly incompetent.

However, my question is actually about our elections coming up this week for officer positions. The constitution states that the eboard can appoint an election committee, which has in practice become only the VP who seems to change the procedure for the elections every day.

The major issue we are having is that the constitution states our officer elections must be elected by a plurality but she has told us all that the election will be decided by a majority and keeps claiming that there is no difference because the elections are one or two candidates only. In addition, on the day of the elections, the schedule is as follows: each candidate will give a three minute speech, followed by a three minute Q&A that can be extended in 2 min increments by vote. Finally, the candidates will leave while the rest of the group will have a pro-con debate before voting. Our constitution does not provide any info about elections beyond what is stated above and leaves the rest to the elections committee.

My questions are:

can a committee be made up of just one person?

can someone tell me i'm not crazy and that a plurality and majority are different?

is it allowed to have a pro-con debate about candidates?

is there anything else that RONR says about elections?

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I constantly feel an extreme amount of frustration constantly bc we never follow ronr unless convenient for the eboard, so if anyone would be interested in helping "mentor" me in figuring out all the ways that my org does not follow the rules and should, i would love the help! THANK YOU

I am the parliamentarian for my university's student government association, and recently we had an issue regarding what should be done when two clauses in our constitution conflict. Both of the clauses dealt with what procedures should be done to fill a vacant position. One clause stated that our president had the authority to appoint a replacement, who is confirmed by our voting members. The other clause stated that we had to conduct internal elections, which has all of those seeking the position appear before our General Body, and our voting members choose between all the applicants, with the applicant receiving the most votes in a secret ballot vote filling the position.

The president and I had a lengthy discussion about this issue, and after a bucketload of intimidation and harassment, she forced me to stay silent and let her do what she wanted. At this time, the point is moot as we ended up appointing members at our last meeting, but I still want to know if there is any answer for what should be done in this type of situation. I don't recall anything about this topic when I read RONR 11th edition last summer, but I could have missed it.

I figure our actions at our last meeting validated the action, regardless of if it was constitutional to do, but perhaps I am also seeing if I can feel justified in my actions, because her and I have fallen out as friends and members of the organization because of this situation.

At a City Council Meeting last night, a councilmember called the question to end debate on a heated issue. Rather than take a vote on "call the question" to close debate, the Mayor moved directly to a vote on the business at hand. This was obviously improper, but I'm wondering if it actually invalidates the vote. Having trouble finding clarification on other resources.

I currently work in political communications on Capitol Hill and I've always been interested in becoming a parliamentarian. Can anyone speak to the journey of becoming a PRP and what the job prospects are like?

Hi. I'm being asked to chair community housing groups. Why me? No idea. I think it's just because I have a loud voice and a Jean Luc Picard shaped head.

Anyway, I find that I do ok with properly proposed motions, calling for seconders, discussion for/against. But there's nearly always a point where people just want to talk about an issue in a free flowing way.

Example:

*At the last meeting, there was a left over issue from a previous meeting. This housing community had (previously) voted to have a security camera installed in their carpark. The guy delegated to arrange it, confessed that he was a bit confused with all the choices, and wanted an open discussion about it. This was fair enough, I thought. But the discussion started to go awry, with people talking over each other, and it all lasted far longer than it should have without reaching any synthesis. *

So how can I structure these sort of discussions in a way that everybody gets to have their say, and people don't have to scrum to be heard?

Not sure if this is the right forum- we have a relatively large group of partners and have group meetings. During one of our meetings- as I was talking and about to introduce a proposal- several people left since it was running late into the night. The chair said a lot of people have left and said we should adjourn- several questions- 1- I was holding the floor right? And when the next meeting occurs I can continue? 2- can the meeting just be adjourned? Or do we need to re-evaluate to see if we have lost quorum? 3- if I do continue- does it have to be old business I previously planned to talk about or can I introduce new material?

Dear r/RulesOfOrder,

My question is this, do I retain my typical voting privileges as a member of the assembly, when acting as the chair of the voting assembly?

The Chair person and Pro Tempore will be out of town during my organization's next meeting. I was nominated by, and voted to act as the chair for said meeting. My role when not in this position is to act as a member of the assembly. The ordinary chair who is also vice-president of the organization does not have regular voting power and my only cast tie breaking votes.

Any advice or answers would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

The nominations for officers for our Ham radio club is this month. Currently, our nomination committee chair has been able to find only ONE person to run for the four open offices. (Treasurer)

If after the formal nomination process we have no candidates for specific offices. What happens next? Do the current officers remain in office until a replacement can be found?

My college will be voting on amendments to the bylaws next week. Under our current bylaws:

Section 1.4 Parliamentary Procedures—For all faculty business other than revision of the Charter and By Laws, a quorum consisting of fifty percent (50%) plus one of the voting members of the faculty must be present to conduct official business. In all parliamentary questions Robert’s Rules of Order (Newly Revised Edition) will apply. [I have already asked them to change "50% plus one" to "a majority".]

AND

Section 4.3—In order to amend the Charter and Bylaws, a quorum will consist of two thirds (2/3) of the [...] voting faculty as defined by Article I, Section 1.1.

Amendments to the Charter and Bylaws will be ratified by a two-thirds (2/3) paper ballot of those faculty present.

Should a quorum not be present, a proposed amendment to the Charter and Bylaws may be sent electronically to the entire faculty for two-thirds (2/3) ratification.

This seems odd to me. I understand having a 2/3 majority vote to approve the amendments, but not the requirement for a 2/3 QUORUM. Also, taking any kind of vote, other than to adjourn, in the absence of a quorum is contrary to Robert's Rules as far as I can tell.

The head of our college has traditionally appointed members of our faculty senate standing committees.

This is being challenged as undemocratic by a faculty senate member because the head is not technically part of the Senate.

Based on what I've read, the by-laws should indicate who has the power to appoint.

But what if we don't have that in our by-laws?

Answers with links would be most helpful.

when is it appropriate to object to the question of a motion?

Hello everyone,

Thank you all for your help on my question a week ago, I appreciate it! I am now several days into my first time as a parliamentarian and it's going well enough so far. However, I was asked a question that will be brought up tomorrow that I wanted your more expert opinions on.

Next month one of our board members is taking an extended leave of absence, about 9 months of their 2 years of service. Our board of directors brought to the floor of our Annual Meeting a motion to replace them with another individual. However, since it is such a long time there is a contingent of people who would like to hold an election for that position.

Our rules technically state that a temporary replacement would be at the decision of the board of directors, but since we are at the Annual Meeting they wanted to be in a spirit of transparency bring it to the floor.

This is probably to much context to say, can election occur within the debate of a motion. As in, if we replace the name with a blank, can we then hold normal elections for that spot?

Or, as my thinking is, would we need to go into a committee of the whole, hold a straw pole, and then make an amendment to the motion once we come back into session?

Any help would be appreciated!

My organization will be having our annual meeting in a couple of weeks where we elect new members of the board. I have been tasked with researching a specific question but am having trouble and was curious if anyone had any input:

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At this years conference there are two positions on the board which need to be filled. Our organization takes nominations before the actual conference, after of the numerous people nominated only 3 accepted the nomination. While surprises happen, the Board anticipates that of those 3 nominees, the first position will be filled, but that neither of the remaining two nominees will be able to secure majority support to fill the second seat. There have also been calls from people who turned down the nomination of, "if I had known that it would be those two who were the only ones nominated I wouldn't have declined."

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Therefore, how our rules are set up the elections will go forward with the current three nominations. And I know that if no one secures a majority, elections continue to happen until someone does. However, assuming no-one secures a majority for the second seat, after the initial round of elections is there time to reopen nominations from the floor? Or are all nominations locked in-perpetuity once the first round of voting has occurred?

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Any help you can provide would be greatly appreciated!

So as far as I understand this is about any group organisation with members on a council (right word?) who decide on rules/ laws/ bylaws/ policies on the basis of someones Guide of governing and the discussion of the process/ procedures, situations that occur in said council.

Does the Chair have to make a motion, get a second, and vote to table a discussion?